Executives at Panasonic Corp. have said the company is developing a robot designed to reduce the amount of time pharmacists spend dispensing injectible drugs to the wards of the hospitals in which they work.
The robot, which looks like a rolling medicine cabinet, according to a Panasonic spokesperson, contains the medical records of patients and orders from doctors for their medication. It’s designed to allow pharmacists to dispense drugs for each patient, and store them in the robot, which will travel to patient floors and put the drugs in drawers designated for each patient. Nurses or doctors on patient floors then dispense to patients directly or through intravenous drip tubes.
In addition to cutting the cost of pharmacists serving hospital wards, the robot holds the promise of making the process more efficient because it won’t be called away for emergencies or requests from other patients or doctors. It might also reduce the amount of time pharmacists spend travelling to and from patient floors. The robot could complete in two hours the drug-distribution work it would take a human pharmacist four hours to complete, the company told Nikkei.net.
It will be available in Japan later this year. The robot is Panasonic’s first robotics project. The Osaka-based company expects annual revenue from its medical robotics to reach $315 million by 2016, the spokesman said.
The robot, which looks like a rolling medicine cabinet, according to a Panasonic spokesperson, contains the medical records of patients and orders from doctors for their medication. It’s designed to allow pharmacists to dispense drugs for each patient, and store them in the robot, which will travel to patient floors and put the drugs in drawers designated for each patient. Nurses or doctors on patient floors then dispense to patients directly or through intravenous drip tubes.
In addition to cutting the cost of pharmacists serving hospital wards, the robot holds the promise of making the process more efficient because it won’t be called away for emergencies or requests from other patients or doctors. It might also reduce the amount of time pharmacists spend travelling to and from patient floors. The robot could complete in two hours the drug-distribution work it would take a human pharmacist four hours to complete, the company told Nikkei.net.
It will be available in Japan later this year. The robot is Panasonic’s first robotics project. The Osaka-based company expects annual revenue from its medical robotics to reach $315 million by 2016, the spokesman said.
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