Four hospitals choose McKesson solution to automate prescription delivery

Four acute-care hospitals have chosen ROBOT-Rx, an automated medication-dispensing and pharmacy-integration system manufactured by McKesson Corp., as part of a total bar-code-based pharmacy system for medication safety and operational efficiency.

The solution suite ensures that patient medications picked by the robot are bar-code scanned for accuracy before leaving the pharmacy, McKesson said in a news release.

The hospitals include Chesapeake Regional Medical Center, Chesapeake, Va.; Knapp Medical Center, Weslaco, Texas; Nash General Hospital, Rocky Mount, N.C.; and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, Bronx, N.Y. They join approximately one-third of the nation’s large- and medium-sized hospitals that already use the system.

According to research conducted by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, while use of these systems has increased during the past decade, only 24% of hospitals nationwide currently use bar-coding to verify medications dispensed by the pharmacy.