This morning I got to work and attended the monthly department meeting. My supervisor was discussing the changes the hospital was undergoing within the next couple of years. The intensive care unit is expanding to provide better health care in cardiology for example. Then he went on to talk about the changes the Pharmacy itself was going to experience. The supervisors are planning to get some prepacking machines that are supposed to help alleviate the load, and decrease the errors in pre-packaging. Though it all sounds great, it just made it that more evident that noboby is indispensable. We will all soon be replaced by robots and the number of employees will diminish to just a few. For instance, a hospital on the eastside got a couple of robots to make the hourly deliveries to the different rooms. This robot got rid of two tech positions since this robot took up the workload. The robot was refilled with the most common meds and the robot had a backpack attached so all other meds that needed to go up could be placed in there. Once he got to the designated areas, the nurses punched in their passwords on the keyboard attached to the front of the robot unlocking it, then the nurses got their meds.
With this new dispensing machine, the pharmacy will get rid of one technician position for sure because the estimated time of filling a med cart today is two hours give or take. This is all depending how busy the rest of the pharmacy is. With the dispensing machine, the average filling is about twenty to thirty minutes. The computer has all the schedule meds of the patients, and with the hit of a button, the computer sends this to the machine to begin the fill process. All the pharmacy would need is a person to refill the machine.
This might not seem as drastic to many of you. But just think of some of the things that have become obsolete because computers have replaced them. Needless to say, how dependent has one become with technology. Half of us can't even remember phone numbers because they are saved in our cell phone phone book. I have been the victim of technology when I lost my phone last week. I have only six entrees that I could remember, everyone else, well let's just say I am hoping to see them soon to get their numbers:)