Pharmacy Device Requirements

The sole function of the “pharmacy device” will be to imprint machine-readable prescription administration instructions onto medication containers. It would minimally consist of an electronic writing device, a PC-compatible interface, and graphical software that the pharmacist uses to specify prescription administration parameters.

In designing the pharmacy device, several factors required input from actual pharmaceutical staff in order to develop a device that would be an inconvenience. Mainly, the willingness of the pharmacist to adapt to and regularly operate the pharmacy device of our system needed to be evaluated in order to determine how the device should be constructed. Ron Bernardino, a clinical pharmacist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, was interviewed to serve as a basis for the design of the device.

Ron was first asked what types of pharmacy customers, in his opinion, would consider owning an automated pill dispenser. His response matched the general view that the elderly, disabled, and cognitively deficient would be the largest customer base for such a device.

Secondly, we asked what would be an acceptable size for the data writing component of the pharmacy device. Because of the numerous medications, files, and other clutter pharmacies are usually found with, an important consideration is the amount of space our device takes. Ron, who has worked in both outpatient retail pharmacies and hospital settings, states that there is usually sufficient counter space for a device that serves the purpose of printing labels. He gives an estimated “reasonable” size of 10 square inches, roughly the size of a tissue box or similarly shaped object. This estimate is based on current label printing devices present in pharmacies that are about that size. However, Ron adds that counter space is naturally dependent on the pharmacy, i.e. grocery store vs. stand-alone pharmacy, volume of store, etc.

The next issue addressed in the interview was the difficulty of filling the medication bottles. The current design of our medication bottle makes the task of inserting pills slightly more difficult that dropping them into a standard bottle; this is due to the specialized adapter cap that will be outfitted on the bottles. We asked Ron to give a qualitative estimate of how much additional difficulty a pharmacist would consider acceptable in filling a medication bottle such as the one in our design. He states that because the smaller opening of our cap resulted in being able to insert less pills at a time, our design may be too difficult to use comfortably. However, he adds that if the employer offers a type of reimbursement for performing this added service (which many do), a pharmacist would likely bear with the additional difficulty.

Following this, we asked Ron what shape and size requirements must the bottle and cap adhere to so as not to be inconvenient to the pharmacist. In his personal experience, the shape does not greatly affect the handling of bottles and caps in the workspace. However, in the same vein as the previous response, it would be more convenient for the one handling the medications to have a larger opening, or larger bottle in general. The size constraint, then, would be to keep the parts on a larger scale so as to be able to handle them with ease.

Lastly, we asked Ron’s opinion on the method of attaching printed labels to the medication bottle. In our design, there can either be a separate label printer, which will print labels that can be manually attached to the bottle, or a special data-writing device that only requires that the bottle itself be inserted into the device, after which instructions will print on its surface. According to Ron, the traditional method in pharmacies is to print the label and attach them to the bottle. Therefore, he states that he would be comfortable with a printer that utilizes this method. However, if the bottle-enclosing writer can be performed with such ease and has little risk of complications and malfunction, then very likely the pharmacist can adapt to the new method and can begin to process orders efficiently.

Data Encoding Functionality

The means through which this component will imprint data onto the disposable prescription containers depends the particular storage medium employed. To ease operation by the pharmacist, this imprinting should require little manual skill on their part. For example, if the data storage medium is paper (i.e. 2-D barcode), the pharmacist should not be responsible for properly aligning the paper on the prescription container. Optimally, the pharmacist should simply have to insert a prescription container into a properly shaped hole, activate the data writer, and then remove the container (this is a procedure an interviewed Rite-Aid pharmacist did not consider to be a significant burden). Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID) are also an appealing, low cost option as an alternative to printed barcodes.

Size, Shape, and Weight

We assume that counter space is at a premium at a pharmacy, and therefore intend to minimize size of the pharmacy device as much as possible. Its relatively simple function should result in its needing to be not that much bigger than the data storage medium on which it writes. We constrain its dimensions to not exceed 20cm in width, 30cm in height, and 35cm in (counter) depth.