“Roto Filling brings a lot of calm to the workfloor.”
Apotheek Huizermaat · Huizen, pharmacist Judith Strous on automated local filling with FarmaSort.
Central filling for repeats, the rest by hand
Pharmacist Judith Strous of Apotheek Huizermaat in Huizen has used the Roto Filler since October 2017, she was one of the first pharmacies with a FarmaSort solution. “I’m very enthusiastic about it: we save a lot of time and it has brought a lot of calm to the workfloor.”
Before that, repeat prescriptions ran through central filling and the rest were processed by hand. Central filling delivers ready-made boxes by patient name, but it is expensive. The main consideration was financial: support staff are cheaper than assistants, and the time saved adds up.
Together with FarmaSort, Strous built a business case. “The calculation showed we would recoup the Roto Filler fairly quickly.” On top of that, she wanted to free up assistants for medication guidance, such as lung checks and medication reviews.
“Processing the prescriptions used to take about 11 hours. With Roto Filling that process now takes just 2 hours.”
Roto Filling: a compact carousel for 44 patients at once
With the Roto Filler, prescriptions for multiple patients are processed automatically and simultaneously, from a single fixed workstation, in very little space.
View Roto Filling
Prepare & order
A day in advance, the team prepares the prescriptions in the pharmacy system and orders the medicines from the wholesaler.
Arrive unsorted
The next day the ordered medicines arrive unsorted in crates.
Scan & carousel
Scanning links each box to the patient. The Roto Filler prints the label with a unique barcode and rotates the right of its 44 compartments to the front.
Laser safeguard
A laser beam guards every compartment: if a box ends up in the wrong one, the system blocks until the error is corrected. Via track-and-trace, each compartment is immediately assigned a spot in the pickup cabinet.
From eleven hours of manual work to two, and far more calm
The Roto Filler paid for itself quickly. It saves a lot of back-and-forth to the drawer cabinet, and the team can focus on care instead of logistics.
Time saved
From around 11 hours of manual work to 2. Ordered medicines no longer have to go into the drawer cabinet and back out, a huge saving.
Calm & focus
Far less walking around. An unskilled employee operates the system, so assistants can focus on medication guidance.
Safe & virtually error-free
The laser safeguard makes mis-sorting impossible. In the entire first year only a single, human, error was counted.
Short lines
“It’s a small company, the lines are short. If there’s a fault, we just call and it’s fixed quickly, usually remotely.”
“I’m very enthusiastic about it. We save a lot of time and the Roto Filler has brought a lot of calm to the workfloor. Everything runs flawlessly now.”