Impact of Implementing Oral and Topical Medication Picking Systems to Promote Task Shifting and Sharing from Pharmacists to Non-Pharmacists in Dispensing Practice on the Occurrence of Dispensing Errors

Machine-assisted support for dispensing practice may be effective in promoting task shifting and sharing of pharmacists’ practice with non-pharmacists. In April 2022, Mie University Hospital implemented the robotic picking system Drug Station® (DS) to prevent verification errors for picking medications in the dispensing practice. This study examined the error rates, underlying factors related to the accuracy of pharmacists and non-pharmacists in picking oral and topical medications, and incident occurrence rates before and after DS implementation. The study period was divided into three periods: 4 months immediately before DS implementation (Group A), 4 months immediately after DS implementation (Group B), and 5 – 8 months after DS implementation (Group C). The DS usage rate for all prescriptions was 77.1％ in Group B and 81.3％ in Group C. The number of prescriptions picked by the non-pharmacists increased by approximately 2.4 times in Groups B and C compared with Group A. The error rates in picking medications decreased significantly from 1.01％ in Group A to 0.36％ in Group B (P = 0.0025) and 0.29％ in Group C (P = 0.0043). Regarding the self-reported influencing factor for non-pharmacists, “failure to verify” accounted for 90.7％ in Group A, whereas the percentages in Groups B and C were 51.6％ and 60.0％, respectively. Incident reports due to incorrect drugs, specifications, and picking amounts were lower in Groups B and C than in Group A. These findings suggest that DS supports accurate picking of oral and topical medications by non-pharmacists, facilitating task shifting from pharmacists to non-pharmacists.