Do Automated Medication Dispensing Machines Improve Patient Care In Hospitals?
F: Find the Problem
Increase in medication error
Misplacement of medications in machine
Ability to bypass review of medication changes by pharmacist
Difficult to attribute errors to machine itself or improper use of machine by health care providers
High cost to implement
Resources may be better spent elsewhere
Cost of other systems needed
Need other decision support systems in place to support use of automatic medication dispensing system
A: Ask What is at Stake
Patient safety
Needs to be at forefront of every single decision
Errors could lead to patient harm
More difficult to track errors to a single person to minimize future errors and know what went wrong
Reduction in time to administer medication
Automated machines keep a better stock and allow easier accessibility for health care providers to medications
C: Consider Resources and Options
Manual stocking and access of medications
Ensures errors can be tracked to who was responsible for taking inventory and stocking
Holds employees more accountable
Ensures proper checks are done instead of relying on the machine
Use of other decision support systems to aid use of automatic dispensing machine
Use of computerized physician order entry with a clinical decision support system can majorly decrease errors when using automatic medication dispensing machine
E: Evaluate the Solutions
Manually stocking and accessing medication cabinets
Pros
No implementation cost
Increased vigilance of errors
Increased accountability instead of relying on the machine
Cons
Increased time to retrieve medications
Must keep track of inventory manually which is time consuming
Less accessibility in every care unit
Use of other decision support systems in tandem with the automatic medication dispensing system
Pros
Cons
Expensive to implement when money could be spent in other areas that may help patients more
Reliance on computers may become too great with clinicians never making judgement calls themsleves
Decrease in medication error when all protocols are followed correctly
All protocols must be followed exactly to obtain results
Automatic inventory control of narcotic and controlled drugs
Ability to track and monitor drug usage patterns
Reduction of inappropriate/unnecessary usage of drugs
D: Draft Solution
The use of automated medication dispensing systems must be used with other technology to ensure the best and most proper use of the dispensing system.