Tag: medical dispenser

Prescription Drug Vending Machine Brought on Campus

Posted on by John Van Horn

Over the last few years, you’ve no doubt gotten used to the fact that vending machines are no longer just a source for soft drinks and salty snacks. You’ve probably purchased at least one electronic device from a vending machine in an airport, or have at least seen someone do so. You’ve maybe even used a DVD vending machine or gotten your morning paper in much the same way. Now, providers are taking things to the next level by offering prescription dispenser units and other medical vending machine options.

Arizona State University’s Prescription Medication Vending Machine

In 2014, Arizona State University became one of the first educational institutions in the country to install a prescription dispenser on campus. Located in the Health Services Building, this unit was designed to help both make sure that people had quick and easy access to the medical supplies that they needed and to increase efficiency within that organization at the exact same time.

The medical vending machine was designed to fill the medical prescriptions of both students and university employees at a moment’s notice. By using a voucher with identifying information that itself is tied to a very specific code, any doctor could prescribe medication to a patient that could then be picked up at the vending machine within 24 hours.

This advancement couldn’t have come at a better time, too, as the pharmacy at Arizona State University closed just a few weeks prior. Thanks to the prescription dispenser, people were able to continue getting the service they needed without transferring to other pharmacies or seeing any other type of negative impact at all.

At its launch, the prescription medication vending machine offered the 50 medications that were most commonly prescribed to students on campus. Based on the type of software that the machine was powered with, this could change on a regular basis as trends did. If a new medication were to creep into that top 50, it would be added to the list and something that was less likely to be prescribed would be removed.

UCapIt

UCapIt is just one example of a company that is offering controlled access pharmaceutical dispensing options to healthcare organizations around the world on a daily basis. UCapIt solutions are armed with state-of-the-art software that allows not only for instant recording whenever a purchase is made, but also for things like detailed reporting, the tracking of who has access to which types of supplies, advanced inventory management capabilities and more.

This is just one example of the many ways that medical vending machine technology is positively impacting the lives of people all over the world on a daily basis. For students at Arizona State University, they found the process of filling a prescription was easier than ever before. It’s easy to picture a time not too far from now where these types of medical vending solutions are rolled out beyond college campuses and are located in drug stores, pharmacies and other locations across the world.

Star Trek’s Medical Tricorder Is No Longer Fantasy

Posted on by John Van Horn

When you think about the classic 1960’s show “Star Trek,” you probably call to mind images of Klingons, Tribbles and star William Shatner wearing what can politely be called a “toupee” and ignoring all conventional forms of grammar and punctuation at the exact same time. What you may not realize is that even though “Star Trek” aired during the 1960s, a lot of the technology used by the Enterprise has shifted from the realm of fantasy into reality. Take the medical tricorder used by Dr. McCoy on the show, for example – if Stanford scientists have their way, hospitals around the world will be using this wonderful device sooner rather than later.

Star Trek – Science Fact?

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Dr. McCoy’s medical tricorder, it’s a device that actually resembles a common cell phone in many ways. It’s a device he used in just about every episode to identify certain problems that a person was having and to check blood samples without requiring them to go through the types of invasive procedures that would have been common at the time.

Now, a team of scientists from Stanford believe that they’ve developed what would essentially be the modern day equivalent of the tricorder – a device that can be used to spot a cancerous tumor in a person from as far as a foot away.

As with most incredible inventions, this one came about by accident. DARPA was searching for a way to remotely identify bombs that were buried in the soil to increase troop safety. Using microwave technology, researchers were able to create a detector that accomplished exactly that. Now, those Stanford scientists are using the same basic theory to identify tumors based on the number of additional blood vessels they create in the affected area of a person’s body. The project’s leader says that it will only take between 10 and 15 years to get this technology into the hands of medical providers everywhere.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMqR8Lw-AKE

UCapIt

UCapIt is just one example of a company that is helping to take the science fiction technology on classic shows like “Star Trek” and make it a reality today. UCapIt offers controlled access pharmaceutical dispensing solutions to customers all over the world on a daily basis. Not only do these pharmaceutical dispensers and hospital vending machines offer access to the important supplies that employees need when they need them the most, but they also help the medical organizations themselves prevent theft, abuse, tackle inventory and supply control problems and more.

Medical vending machine options like these are just one of the many examples of how technology has allowed us to take what was once considered pure fantasy and bring it into the world of reality in the most efficient way possible. If we’re already so close to having a medical tricorder in every hospital in the world, can the transporter or the holodeck from the Enterprise really be that far behind?

EMS Supply Vending Machines | Equipment That Saves Lives

Posted on by John Van Horn

Running out of a crucial piece of life-saving equipment is not something EMS teams should have to deal with, unfortunately, it is a reality that many faces all too often.

In the past few years, the Food and Drug Administration passed a law that stated that hospitals were end-users of medical equipment and medication, rather than distributors for EMS crews. This meant that after dropping off a patient for care, the crews could no longer restock their vehicles if needed.

In addition to the reduction in the manufacturing of certain drugs and medical products that don’t bring in a hefty profit from manufacturers, many EMS crews are finding it more and more difficult to get the supplies they need to save lives.

An Innovative New Approach to Stocking Supplies For EMS Crews

Due to the potential of shortages and the inability to restock a vehicle at hospitals, a creative solution was needed and the EMS supply vending machine emerged. Found at local fire stations, medical clinics and hospitals these unique EMS equipment and supply vending machines provide EMS personnel with the medical equipment and supplies that they need on a daily basis to save lives.

Stock EMS Personnel – Minimize Waste

Another issue is a large amount of waste at the end of the month due to certain drugs or equipment not being used by its expiration date, costing hospital inventory management thousands of dollars. Medical supply vending machines make it possible to know when something is nearing expiration and reduce what is stocked to avoid unnecessary costs. This ensures that workers have what they need, without the excessive waste that often follows.

What About Security?

One of the biggest concerns that were introduced with the concept of a pharmaceutical vending machine was security. What would stop an average person from taking what they wanted – even narcotics – from these machines?

The solution is superior security that minimizes the potential for theft. This was achieved with high endurance security glass, fingerprint recognition, and code verification. All potential scenarios were thought through to make this a safe and viable option to get EMS workers the supplies they need.

While EMS equipment and supply vending machines are still a relatively new idea, the popularity of the machines is growing steadily. They offer a viable solution to a problem that is seen across the country. Ensuring that EMS workers have the tools they need to save lives is essential and this is exactly the benefit offered by these first aid vending machines.

UCapIt offers medical supply vending machines and secured locker systems that will meet the standards and security of EMS personnel. Contact UCapIt today to learn more at 877-771-4446.

Vending Machines Supplied With Breastfeeding Equipment

Posted on by John Van Horn

Vending machine technology has certainly come a long way in the last several decades. No longer are vending machines only designed to provide you with a quick snack in between meals, or something to drink when you’re thirsty at work or school. Medical vending machines and similar types of automated solutions are making people’s lives easier across a wide range of different industries on a daily basis. Case in point: a new type of vending machine is specifically designed to provide working mothers with the tools they need to breastfeed their children while on the job.

It’s a situation that is all too familiar to women who are trying to maintain a career and raise a family at the same time: they’re on the job and ready to breastfeed, only to realize that they’ve forgotten a storage bag or a valve or some other important item at home that morning in their haste. Their child needs to eat, but they don’t have what they need and find themselves in a tricky predicament.

Thanks to a new type of vending machine technology, these fears are well and truly a thing of the past. A vending machine that was recently installed at Johns Hopkins Hospital allows working mothers to purchase a wide range of different breastfeeding tools and equipment at a moment’s notice. It is the first of its kind, though it certainly will not be the last.

The breastfeeding equipment vending machine stocks everything that a mother would need to successfully breastfeed her child, from storage bottles to nipple cream to pump accessories and everything in between. The machine was created by Mega Stoltzfus, who is employed by Johns Hopkins in the Office of Work, Life and Engagement.

Stoltzfus indicated that inspiration hit her when she was walking through an airport and realized how far vending machine technology has come even in the last decade. As someone who previously needed to work odd hours and breastfeed to the job herself, she decided to work directly with a manufacturer to design a specialized vending machine solution for people like her.

Because the type of equipment that is being sold in the vending machine is considered to be an employee benefit, it is all available at a steep discount. Any mother who finds that she needs to use the machine can pay for her items using a debit or credit card – it really is that simple.

Working mothers who are not employed by Johns Hopkins won’t have to wait long to get in on this new technology. Other institutions around the country have already expressed interest in similar EMS supply vending machines of their own.

Source:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/maryland-family/now/bal-johns-hopkins-introduces-a-vending-machine-for-breastfeeding-mothers-20140710-story.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2708524/Vending-machines-containing-breastfeeding-equipment-rolled-Baltimore-hospital-attempt-cater-working-moms.html

Robot Inventory Drug Control at University Health Services

Posted on by John Van Horn

The pharmacy at Penn State University’s Student Health Center has employed a robot lovingly named “Rex” to do everything from count pills to fill prescription bottles by way of automated pharmaceutical inventory control.

Rex is officially known as a “collating control center robotic prescription-dispensing machine,” which is essentially an automated medical vending machine on a much larger scale. Doris Guanowsky, the senior associate director at University Health Services at Penn State, says that this is exactly the type of technological innovation that is allowing them to serve and care for a greater number of people with each passing day. Rex is currently being used to fill the prescriptions of employees, students, retirees and everyone in between.

Guanowsky indicated that it is not common for a university to have this type of technology at all, let alone working in the Student Health Center. However, the huge volume of patients and prescriptions that the Center is responsible necessitated this emphasis on the best that modern technology has to offer. Over the 2013 to 2014 season alone, University Health Services filled more than 163,000 prescriptions. To put that into slightly different terms, that equates to between 600 and 1,000 prescriptions each and every day.

Filling a prescription is a lot more than just putting pills into a bottle. Patients have to be communicated with, insurance claims need to be properly filed, labels need to be printed en masse and more. By automating a large portion of these processes and delegating that responsibility to Rex, the Center is not only able to keep costs down but can also turn over a higher number of prescriptions per day.

In many ways, a college pharmacy vending machine solution like Rex is powered on similar technology to the type that UCapIt has been incorporating into its solutions for over 80 years. UCapIt provides a wide range of different technological solutions that healthcare providers depend on daily. The CAP 5, for example, allows healthcare professionals to have complete control over the dispensing of the widest variety of products and medical supplies. The CAP 5 Refrigerated adds in the ability to control an environment’s climate, increasing the total number of items that can be stored based on those conditions.

One thing is for sure: between the solutions that UCapIt provides and the ways in which medical centers like the one at Penn State are embracing modern technology, everyone is benefiting – from patients to healthcare practitioners and everyone in between.

Benefits of Using Pharmaceutical Vending Machines

Posted on by John Van Horn

Dispensers-TrioAn average U.S. adult takes more than 11 prescription medications, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and senior citizens fill more than 31 prescriptions annually. The need for prescriptions contributes to the high cost of medical care, but some companies have found a way to circumvent the middle man.

Pharmaceutical dispensing machines for stable patients receiving prescriptions for diagnosed illnesses is becoming a cost and time-saving solution. This prescription dispenser machine allows consumers to pick up prescriptions after hours, which can be helpful for busy individuals and families to avoid long lines and lengthy conversations in the traditional pharmacy.

The Process

The process for filling a prescription at a healthcare medical vending machine is not much different compared with a traditional pharmacy prescription. A consumer phones a pharmacy to order a prescription. A pharmacist fills the prescription and adds it to a prescription dispenser machine where a consumer can pick it up, using a passcode, and paying with a credit or debit card.

Other pharmaceutical vending machines will accept prescriptions from the patient. These prescription dispensing machines are used overseas and in the U.S., which can be advantageous for busy hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and rural communities that have less access to medical care. Pharmaceutical supplies can also be among the vending machine products.

Some pharmacy dispensing machine companies require the patient to speak with a pharmacist by video phone before the prescription can be dispensed.

The Advantages

While the traditional pharmacist is helpful in the cases when a patient is prescribed a new, unfamiliar drug, because she can help explain potential side effects and discuss any concerns, a familiar drug obtained by refill may not require the human interaction element. Bypassing it with a pharmaceutical dispenser machine can save time and money, and improve customer service through a patient-centered model.

Other advantages of prescription vending machines include removing the barrier to patients feeling empowered to handle health-related matters more independently.