North Somerset pharmacy pioneers into automation with robotics

A North Somerset community pharmacist Hussein Almosawi is planning to venture into care home sector after pioneering into automation and robotics technology, generating 50 per cent efficiency savings.

Almosawi is chief executive officer of SmartPharm, a chain of pharmacies having businesses in Clevedon, Brentford and in East London.

After taking over the Clevedon branch in January this year he installed the Titan pharmacy operating system, from Invatech Health in Bristol.

With its cloud-based architecture, Titan allows full integration with other systems –including robots – that helps in creating a unique workflow.

Almosawi’s practice is the first in the UK to integrate Titan with the Vmax medication dispensing robot, from German manufacturer BD Rowa.

Almosawi said the use of new technology has brought a massive change in the practice and the community it serves, making the functioning much “smoother, easier and more efficient.”

He added: “It’s certainly taken the pressure off our staff. They’re enjoying work and life’s not as busy or stressful as it used to be. We no longer have queues stretching around the premises, with people waiting outside in all weathers.

“We’re actually now working at under our full capacity. So we’re looking at launching into care homes without increasing our staff numbers. We can dispense more prescriptions, offer other services and explore new avenues for our business.”

After its launch in late 2019, Titan became the first pharmacy dispensing system to get NHS accreditation in more than a decade. It created the first paperless workflow and the first barcode scanning process, helping free up pharmacists’ time and enabling them to focus on newly commissioned patient services.

Earlier this year, Invatech Health announced a further £950,000 funding from Innovate UK, under a programme to support game-changing innovations in the UK’s SME community.

The company has created cloud platform and API messaging to allow other systems to connect with the PMR workflow. This integration is equivalent to an ‘app store’ for pharmacy.

Tariq Muhammad, CEO at Invatech Health, said: “We always planned to have integrations with robots and we saw this as an exciting opportunity to take dispensing workflow to the next level and be more than just a simple message communicating to the robot. We’re extremely pleased with the impact our tech is having.”

Besides, the new Titan Stock app was released to SmartPharm Pharmacy earlier this month.

The special feature of the app is that it solves the issue of split packs. This is when the doctor prescribes a quantity which is less than the original pack size of the drug. In such cases, Titan issues a new barcode to identify the leftover stock so it can be recognised by the robot as a split.

Joshua Akin-George, Sales Leader BD Rowa™ Northern Europe, said Titan’s approach to the integration is refreshing and allows the full potential of the V-Max to be realised.

He said: “The combined effect of our joint interface, the Titan Stock App and the established digital and paperless workflow already in Titan, has given rise to a new level of efficiency never before seen in a pharmacy.”