A pharmacist's point of view (Score 3, Insightful)

I work in a retail setting and have actually seen and used one of these robots. This particular model was by Baker, and is a $125,000 piece of equipment. Most facilities implement one of these robots because of extremely high volumes, to assist in the mundane filling tasks associated with pharmacy. I am not aware of any Federal or State Regulation which allows robots to fill your prescription without a pharmacist on duty, so do not assume that automation of pharmacy means lack of supervision. The Baker unit I described above is sent information from a pharmacy computer, not from a doctor. At this point, I consider direct doctor-to-robot input sketchy at best, unless a prototype model. (Imagine your crusty old country physician firing up his Compaq iPaq and transmitting a prescription on his wireless network to the local robot pharmacy...yeah get the picture?) I know of towns in the rural southwest where the pharmacist literally rides into town once a week to fills rxs that day and that day only... But anyway, this particular robot holds about 180 drugs, holds the vials and caps, and actually fills, prints and labels your prescription. This model can fill about 100 rxs per hour and if it breaks, the ancillary staff has to pick up the slack. I like the analogy previously posted that describes the robot as giving a ditch digger a backhoe instead of a shovel. However, I am very concerned about how technology has affected pharmacy over the last 100 years. WE actually used to compound medication, not a pharmaceutical company in the MAJORITY of cases. Does this mean I want to go back to hand-rolling suppositories? (we used to do that too) No. All I ask is that the benevolent readers of /. be concerned that there is a licensed pharmacist on duty no matter WHO or WHAT fills your prescription. If not, then start to panic :-) Dom