When you work in a small hospital in a small town in Ontario, it's always nice to get brand new equipment that makes everything safer and more efficient for the patients and medical staff.
That's how Jayme Watson feels about the four new automatic drug dispensing machines (ADUs) that are being installed at the Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC), which operates hospitals in both Little Current and Mindemoya.
The ADU machines are a common feature in big city hospitals, but have become a welcome new piece of equipment in smaller communities.
Watson is the Operational Pharmacy Manager for the MHC and said the ADUs are similar to a vending machine for prescription meds. She said one of the key points of the new technology is that the drug machines are aligned with the patient's electronic medical record.
"So when a patient is admitted you have a list of medications that are in the system. Those medications are actually profiled to this drug dispensing unit, and verified. So it makes sure that the patient is on the same medications that he's supposed to be on and only those medications can be dispensed on an ongoing basis," Watson explained.
The other benefit she said is inventory control.
"So imagine that in a rural hospital we really want to make sure that the medications we need for our patients are here. So these machines actually keep track; they keep count of the medications that we're using. That gives us some lead time to be able to make sure that if it takes a longer time to order them and get them here that we don't run out," said Watson.
She said another built-in safety feature is that it eliminates the chance of grabbing the wrong drugs for a specific patient.
"So it limits the inadvertent errors that could occur on a busy unit. I mean, we know how strapped health care is as of late. It's very easy, you know when you have a bunch of meds on a shelf to pull out the wrong one," said Watson.
She said the ADU machines are especially useful with narcotics. She said that only a specific dose is released for any patient and only at specific times of the day. The ADU machine also has a refrigeration unit attached to it for storing medications that need to be kept cold, such as insulin.
The machines can only be accessed by health-care professionals who are approved for access. There is biometric control, meaning the machines need a fingerprint identification to be unlocked by a nurse, a physician or a pharmacist.
The machines also provide a printout or a log of all the medications that are provided.
Watson said this is helpful in keeping the machines topped up with meds for something like a long weekend, or in the summer, when Manitoulin Island is visited by thousands of tourists.
Watson said she was pleased to see that the two community hospitals on the Island were being equipped with the new technology, and said it is something she hopes will be featured in other rural hospitals across Northern Ontario. She said medication management is a significant safety factor for any hospital.
The new ADU machines are expected to be set up and operational by March 15 in Little Current and by March 28 in Mindemoya, said a news release from MHC.
Len Gillis is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter at Sudbury.com. He covers health care in Northern Ontario.
