Pennsylvania Hospital to Install PillPick System

The Good Samaritan Health System will be installing Swisslog's PillPick system, which automates the packaging, storage, and dispensing of medications. Once bulk medications are packaged in bar-coded, unit-dose form, they are stored in a high-density pharmacy robot that can accommodate >26,000 unit doses. The Lebanon, Pa-based hospital has a >170-bed census and dispenses ~2500 unit doses daily.

When medicines are needed, unit doses are pulled from the robot into a unit that assembles patient-specific 24-hour medication orders on a flexible PickRing. Each PickRing can be sorted alphabetically or by order of administration. A large bar-coded tag attached to each ring specifies the drug, administration time, and other patient-specific data.