Walgreens Turns to Prescription-Filling Robots to Free Up Pharmacists

 Have seen this in operation locally.  Error rate?

Walgreens Turns to Prescription-Filling Robots to Free Up Pharmacists

By The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2022

U.S. pharmacy chain Walgreens is deploying robots to fill prescriptions for drugstores amid a nationwide shortage of pharmacists and pharmacist technicians.

Robotic arms operating on assembly lines at automated drug-filling centers sort and bottle pills, and place them on conveyor belts. The goal is to free up pharmacists to provide medical services like vaccinations, which are a new and expanding revenue channel. Pharmacy automation software and technology supplier iA provides the robots.

Walgreens says the technology slashes pharmacist workloads by at least 25%, and will save the company over $1 billion annually. More drugstores are looking to automate and centralize drug fulfillment, says iA's chief automation officer Alecia Lashier.

From The Wall Street Journal

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CVS Health Testing Nuro Delivery

This particular Nuro delivery systems is being tested by a number of companies.  See a number of images at the tag.

CVS Health Tests Self-Driving Vehicle Prescription Delivery
Associated Press
Tom Murphy
May 28, 2020

CVS Health will test prescription delivery via self-driving vehicles to customers in Houston beginning this month, in partnership with the Nuro robotics company. A spokesperson for the drugstore chain said prescriptions will be delivered within an hour of ordering from a Houston-area store; customers will have to confirm their identity in order to unlock the vehicle to obtain their delivery. Customers can select the Nuro delivery option when they fill their prescriptions online, and track the vehicle's progress through a Nuro portal. Federal regulators earlier this year granted Nuro temporary approval to operate autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads for the first time without human occupants. .... "

Amazon Wants to be Your Pharmacist (In two ways)

I just got an offer to do this.    Does not seem to be much different than what the big pharma retailers are doing.  No mention at all regarding if there was any discounting of costs involved.    Voice interaction mentioned ... and I am assuming regarding refills and requests to pharmacists.  The idea of reminding you means a notification is involved.    Connected with Giant Eagle for now.

Alexa Can Now Refill Your Prescription and Remind You to Take Your Medicine    By Eric Hal Schwartz  in Voicebot.ai

The new skill combines Alexa’s reminders with their prescription information. For now, only Giant Eagle Pharmacy can operate the skill, but the company plans to add more pharmacies soon. Alexa account owners must set up and connect the Giant Eagle Pharmacy skill to their Alexa profile. They can then ask the voice assistant to manage their medication, setting up reminders for taking the medicine and enabling Alexa to be able to answer if the user asks what medication they are supposed to take when they hear the alarm. Connecting to the pharmacy also allows users to request a prescription refill by asking Alexa.

“We’re thrilled to help our Giant Eagle Pharmacy patients more easily integrate prescription management into their everyday lives with the introduction of the Giant Eagle Pharmacy skill,” Giant Eagle senior vice president of pharmacy Jim Tsipakis said in a statement. “We’re passionate about making care as accessible as possible for our patients, and this unique collaboration with Amazon has enabled us to utilize voice technology to do just that.”

Amazon made a point of highlighting that Alexa is HIPAA compliant and as secure as possible. Accessing the skill requires a voice profile for Alexa to recognize as well as a passcode. The records of interactions with the skill are also redacted to protect the privacy of patients and users can delete them like any other Alexa recording. After a summer with so many voice assistants facing privacy complaints, the focus on security regarding medical information is likely necessary to forestall others from raising concerns. ... "

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PillPack by Amazon Pharmacy

PillPack pre-sorts your daily meds, vitamins, and supplements by time of day, and delivers right to your door every month. Our service and shipping are free — you only pay for your medication. .... " 

In this case:
Makes a strong point of making pharma interaction simpler.
No mention of 'assistant' or voice interaction, or Alexa Pharmacy
No mention of an existing pharmacy, like Giant Eagle handling the interaction. .... "

Revinventing the Design of Rx Labels

While we were in the Rx business this is an area we tinkered with,  like the re-design approach.

CVS Taps A Design Legend To Reinvent The Prescription Label. Next Stop: The Pharmacy
Inspired by service-design overhauls at companies such as Disney and Carnival, CVS is hoping to rethink the entire pharmacy experience.    by Cliff Kuang in FastCodesign

Deborah Adler has had a story book career in design. In 2004, she was a grad student at SVA in New York, looking around for a thesis project when she saw her grandmother accidentally take her grandfather’s medication. Thankfully it wasn’t a catastrophe, but it made Adler consider the confusing mess that is the modern prescription bottle. So that patients might never mistake what medication is for them, she designed a system that could be colored coded for the patient. That bottle was almost immediately picked up by Target, and for the MoMA permanent collection; It was later declared a Design of the Decade by the Industrial Designers Society of America. Since then, Adler’s studio has been focused on improving medical outcomes. Which brought her once again to pill bottles.  .... "

Talking Prescriptions

In Drug Store News: Wal-Mart is piloting a talking prescription system for the visually impaired.