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Source: Xinhua 2017-01-14
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20..._135981078.htm
"...This smart pharmacy is deploying a robot...to dispense prescribed medication, which would be done at a click of button based on a bar code, therefore "minimize any human error," said the report.
The robot,...can store up to 35,000 medicines and dispense around 12 prescriptions in less than a minute...
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) said it plans to adopt the use of robot in all its hospitals soon...."
From where I sit, it looks like, that in the near future, another couple of professions are destined for the dust bin.
In 1966 I was a delivery boy for a Pharmacy. Though I was just a prepubescent kid, one of my jobs was to dispense pills - in those days pills came in big bulk jars. The Pharmacist would tell me what and how many pills. I'd just count them out and dispense them into the appropriately sized container, while she typed up a label. At some stage the pills came in predispensed standard counts. These days pills are prepacked in bubble packs sized as 10, 20, 30 or 50 tablets.
Back in the 1960s rarely did the Pharmacist have to make anything (occasionally a cough mixture with opium extract or another opiate & flavouring).
Over the years most of the old time cures have been outlawed eg: over-the-counter cough mixtures usually contained ephedrine; heroin in pure form was, via USA pressure, officially banned in Oz in 1953 but was still included in the formulations of over-the-counter pain-relief pills for a decade or two. Tablets containing Codeine have recently been made prescription only in Oz (in Indonesia you can go to jail for a very long time for possessing such without a prescription).
http://www.unharm.org/a_brief_history
With everything now predispensed (packaged), scripts amount to shopping lists and the pharmacist has become just a shelf stacker & shelf jockey. A few years ago pharmacists did serve an important purpose if people went to the same pharmacy to have all their scripts filled - the pharmacist tended to track conflicts in medication.
With the advent of the "mall" and the proliferation of discount pharmacies in neighbourhood shopping centres this facilitation became impractical, so the Oz government established a database. Now when you go to get a script filled you have to hand over your medicare card as well as the script. The Pharmacist swipes the card, enters the script details and the system tells the Pharmacist if there is a conflict (it doesn't tell them what other medication you are taking). If a conflict is reported then the Pharmacist rings the doctor etc.
That role is now defunct. It was been streamlined, with the originating doctor being the frontline (see below).
Apart from specialist surgeons & nurses it is projected by futurists that most medical professions will be redundant within a generation - GPs & neighborhood Pharmacists will cease to exist, replaced by low paid, low skilled humans supported by automated processes. Consider...
Within my life time I have witnessed the standardisation of the dispensing of prescription drugs. Filling a prescription has become monkey's play in the 21st century...
A quick background:..
The establishment of Medical Centres standardised medical practices - a patient may over time be serviced by multiple doctors, so whilst there might be loyalty to a practice, the concept of the "family doctor" disappeared.
With no doctor loyalty people would go to whatever Medical Centre was convenient and so the phenomenon of "doctor hopping" occurred (especially amoungst those addicted to prescription drugs, who gamed the then existing system).
Being busy and working to a patient quota per hour, doctors just prescribed whatever they thought fit without considering conflicts with whatever other medication the patient might be taking (and even if asked, patients weren't always forth coming in their use of prescribed or alternative medicines).
To solve that issue the Oz govt setup a national register for prescribed drugs. To get a script filled at a Pharmacy, you had to hand over your Medicare card and the script.
The pharmacist would swipe the card and enter the script details, and the register would tell the pharmacist if there was a conflict. If there was a conflict the Pharmacist would then ring the doctor etc.
That system has been replaced by a frontline approach. Now the national register has been proven as effective and GP practices have been integrated into the system, doctors have become legally liable (no excuses) for any drug they prescribe. They are now responsible for determining conflicts in medication a patient might be taking.
In my experience, these days, here in Oz, in a modern medical practice, your medical records are integrated into "the cloud". Your current medication, your recent medical history and the results & diagnosis from pathology, radiology, mri, catscans, ultrasound scans etc are digitalised and held in "the cloud" and retrieved by whatever doctor you are seeing.
Standard treatments are in another database, which also holds a database of known medicinal conflicts. All the GP has to do is type in any additional notes (eg: effectiveness or reaction to prescribed medicine) and click a few buttons, select a few options and whammo, if the system doesn't detect a conflict, a script is printed out. If the system does detect a conflict, it produces a list of alternative treatments, the doctor makes a selection and a reiterative process occurs until the system doesn't detect a conflict.
GPs are becoming low hanging fruit these days...the projection is they could easily be replaced by automation systems in the here and now. But I don't think so! It'll take time for the automated systems to mature.
People like dealing with people so there will be a psychological impediment with the acceptance of a robot doctor. Also, there will be a need for automated systems to receive independent input, especially the interpretation of client feedback (assume all patients are hypochondriacs and exaggerate there ailments).
The practical projection by futurists is that GPs will in the near future be replaced by low paid, low skilled "nurses".
Within my experience it has always been nurses that are assigned to treat sprains, splint broken bones, give shots, test blood pressure etc.
GPs these days don't do a lot. In a nut shell they get patient feedback, make assessments, send the patients for tests, read diagnostic reports and suggest treatment or write scripts or refer you to a specialist. Specialists are equivalent to GPs except for where they also happen to be surgeons.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20..._135981078.htm
"...This smart pharmacy is deploying a robot...to dispense prescribed medication, which would be done at a click of button based on a bar code, therefore "minimize any human error," said the report.
The robot,...can store up to 35,000 medicines and dispense around 12 prescriptions in less than a minute...
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) said it plans to adopt the use of robot in all its hospitals soon...."
--------------------
From where I sit, it looks like, that in the near future, another couple of professions are destined for the dust bin.
In 1966 I was a delivery boy for a Pharmacy. Though I was just a prepubescent kid, one of my jobs was to dispense pills - in those days pills came in big bulk jars. The Pharmacist would tell me what and how many pills. I'd just count them out and dispense them into the appropriately sized container, while she typed up a label. At some stage the pills came in predispensed standard counts. These days pills are prepacked in bubble packs sized as 10, 20, 30 or 50 tablets.
Back in the 1960s rarely did the Pharmacist have to make anything (occasionally a cough mixture with opium extract or another opiate & flavouring).
Over the years most of the old time cures have been outlawed eg: over-the-counter cough mixtures usually contained ephedrine; heroin in pure form was, via USA pressure, officially banned in Oz in 1953 but was still included in the formulations of over-the-counter pain-relief pills for a decade or two. Tablets containing Codeine have recently been made prescription only in Oz (in Indonesia you can go to jail for a very long time for possessing such without a prescription).
http://www.unharm.org/a_brief_history
With everything now predispensed (packaged), scripts amount to shopping lists and the pharmacist has become just a shelf stacker & shelf jockey. A few years ago pharmacists did serve an important purpose if people went to the same pharmacy to have all their scripts filled - the pharmacist tended to track conflicts in medication.
With the advent of the "mall" and the proliferation of discount pharmacies in neighbourhood shopping centres this facilitation became impractical, so the Oz government established a database. Now when you go to get a script filled you have to hand over your medicare card as well as the script. The Pharmacist swipes the card, enters the script details and the system tells the Pharmacist if there is a conflict (it doesn't tell them what other medication you are taking). If a conflict is reported then the Pharmacist rings the doctor etc.
That role is now defunct. It was been streamlined, with the originating doctor being the frontline (see below).
--------------------
Apart from specialist surgeons & nurses it is projected by futurists that most medical professions will be redundant within a generation - GPs & neighborhood Pharmacists will cease to exist, replaced by low paid, low skilled humans supported by automated processes. Consider...
Within my life time I have witnessed the standardisation of the dispensing of prescription drugs. Filling a prescription has become monkey's play in the 21st century...
A quick background:..
The establishment of Medical Centres standardised medical practices - a patient may over time be serviced by multiple doctors, so whilst there might be loyalty to a practice, the concept of the "family doctor" disappeared.
With no doctor loyalty people would go to whatever Medical Centre was convenient and so the phenomenon of "doctor hopping" occurred (especially amoungst those addicted to prescription drugs, who gamed the then existing system).
Being busy and working to a patient quota per hour, doctors just prescribed whatever they thought fit without considering conflicts with whatever other medication the patient might be taking (and even if asked, patients weren't always forth coming in their use of prescribed or alternative medicines).
To solve that issue the Oz govt setup a national register for prescribed drugs. To get a script filled at a Pharmacy, you had to hand over your Medicare card and the script.
The pharmacist would swipe the card and enter the script details, and the register would tell the pharmacist if there was a conflict. If there was a conflict the Pharmacist would then ring the doctor etc.
That system has been replaced by a frontline approach. Now the national register has been proven as effective and GP practices have been integrated into the system, doctors have become legally liable (no excuses) for any drug they prescribe. They are now responsible for determining conflicts in medication a patient might be taking.
In my experience, these days, here in Oz, in a modern medical practice, your medical records are integrated into "the cloud". Your current medication, your recent medical history and the results & diagnosis from pathology, radiology, mri, catscans, ultrasound scans etc are digitalised and held in "the cloud" and retrieved by whatever doctor you are seeing.
Standard treatments are in another database, which also holds a database of known medicinal conflicts. All the GP has to do is type in any additional notes (eg: effectiveness or reaction to prescribed medicine) and click a few buttons, select a few options and whammo, if the system doesn't detect a conflict, a script is printed out. If the system does detect a conflict, it produces a list of alternative treatments, the doctor makes a selection and a reiterative process occurs until the system doesn't detect a conflict.
GPs are becoming low hanging fruit these days...the projection is they could easily be replaced by automation systems in the here and now. But I don't think so! It'll take time for the automated systems to mature.
People like dealing with people so there will be a psychological impediment with the acceptance of a robot doctor. Also, there will be a need for automated systems to receive independent input, especially the interpretation of client feedback (assume all patients are hypochondriacs and exaggerate there ailments).
The practical projection by futurists is that GPs will in the near future be replaced by low paid, low skilled "nurses".
Within my experience it has always been nurses that are assigned to treat sprains, splint broken bones, give shots, test blood pressure etc.
GPs these days don't do a lot. In a nut shell they get patient feedback, make assessments, send the patients for tests, read diagnostic reports and suggest treatment or write scripts or refer you to a specialist. Specialists are equivalent to GPs except for where they also happen to be surgeons.
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