What does blistering of the future look like?
Time-consuming and high-risk - in the past, the dispensing of patient blisters was associated with many risks. But with the D³-System, the future is now entering pharmacies.
The process of blistering currently takes place in two ways. On the one hand, there is manual blistering, which requires an extremely high number of pharmaceutical personnel.
"If we assume 2500 nursing home beds that we currently supply with card or cup blisters, then I need eight to ten PTAs just for the placement and monitoring process," explains pharmacy owner Dr. Marcus Schmidt, who also manages a health service in Bruchsal.
Furthermore, there are already various providers who offer a semi-automatic solution. In both cases, the medications must first be expressed separately. In addition, with all previous providers of semi-automatic systems, the expressed medications must be temporarily stored in containers. The consequences are obvious: tablet abrasion, cross-contamination, and changing stability data are the three biggest risks that can increase here.
"An approach that fills the card blisters, which are currently in demand, in some way by machine and monitors them optically, that would be the game changer for me at the moment," says Dr. Schmidt.
The Daily Dose Dispenser, which was developed in cooperation with the company KNAPP AG from Graz, now brings the fully automatic solution to the market. The original blisters are provided with a code and passed to the machine. The machine fills the patient blisters directly from the original blister, seals them and prints the necessary information on them.
Previous deblistering of the tablets is no longer necessary. The original blisters are checked at every stage of production, and the output of the individual tablets is electronically monitored several times. The result: no cross-contamination, no handling of open tablets.
Where previously five to seven pharmaceutical workers had to work in a concentrated process, the highly automated process still requires one technician to take care of the consumables, the replenishment of goods and a final check.
MicuraPharm and KNAPP designed the system so that several production lines can be docked together. An automated warehouse for the pharmaceuticals can also be connected. This way, the solution always remains an integrated system controlled by a central software, even when the capacity is expanded.
No one has to restock individual machine inventories or divide orders among different machines.
When expanded by the various modules, 5000 patients and more can be supplied via a Daily Dose dispenser. In this case, only two to three skilled workers are needed to operate the system.
With the fully automated Daily Dose Dispenser, cost and manpower are no problem on the way to more patient service, more comfort for the client and more health.