By Avelyn Ng
Patients collecting their medicine at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) nowadays are greeted with quite a sight – three pairs of larger-than-life robotic arms busy at work behind the pharmacists at the counters.
Nicknamed Tiger Claw, Viper Strike and Dragon Hand, the robots are responsible for transferring baskets of prescriptions from a RFID-enabled conveyor belt to their respective designated shelves for pharmacists to retrieve easily.
The initiative is part of TTSH’s Outpatient Pharmacy Automation System (OPAS), which includes other technological solutions such as a loose pill packing machine, and an inventory and queue management software.
Since implementation in 2015, the integrated system has reduced human errors and increased the volume of patients served in a quarter of an hour from 50 per cent to 80 per cent. The hospital sees 1100 outpatient individuals daily on average.
Job Redesign
“With OPAS, I am able to spend more time frontline instead of back-end. We can now check the prescriptions by scanning barcodes and focus on liaising with patients about their allergies, dosage, requests and concerns. I have the time and opportunities to do new things like process improvement projects and automation training for the staff,” said 27-year-old Senior Pharmacy Technician Tee Mei Yee, who is now also undergoing an advanced diploma in pharmaceutical science fully-sponsored by the company.
According to TTSH, reviewing job scopes and re-allocating tasks among staff is an effort to improve output, productivity, career progression and job satisfaction.
A representative explained: “There is a need to tackle the rising demand for healthcare as the population ages and workforce shrinks. Robots support humans but they cannot run alone. We have to redesign jobs so our people can carry out more high-level tasks to complement the efficiencies that robots bring with them.”
As more manual processes such as registration and payment are being streamlined through automation, Patient Service Associates are being trained to take blood and carry out urine tests, easing nurses’ workload in both the clinics and the wards.
Therapy support staff who used to maintain equipment and transport patients meanwhile can assist therapists in areas such as exercise groups. In turn, therapists have more time to attend to pressing cases.
Medical Technologies
TTSH currently has a system that plans and optimises bed allocation according to nursing, medical and operations considerations. Its Centre for Advanced Rehabilitation Therapeutics weaves in innovative robotics and virtual reality with regular therapy to achieve targeted goals and better outcomes for patients.
Moving forward, the hospital is piloting remote monitoring and patient wearable devices. Nurses can track vital signs using sensors, removing documentation and the need for them to wake elderly patients every four hours for blood pressure checks.
The hospital has also started the trial of a bed-fall surveillance and prevention prediction system, using thermal sensing to provide round-the-clock automated surveillance.
Source: NTUC This Week
