Pharmacy Fulfillment

Medication suppliers to long-term-care and correctional institutions can now enjoy the benefits of automated pharmacy designs to expedite your operations via products from Cornerstone Automation Systems. We offer a complete line of system designs from manual operations to higher throughput systems such as automated fulfillment equipment. Cornerstone Automation System Inc. (CASI) can provide system interfaces to a wide variety of pharmacy based programs through our SolidComm™ Communication module.

Overview

Our equipment and design starts when a prescription has cleared the pharmacy authorization process as a valid prescription. Our Dispense-A-Card system involves automating your top 200 to 300 drugs via a dispensing system. The high volume drugs are loaded into blister cards using MTS or other card filling equipment.  A pharmacist will validate the production run by approving the specific medication along with a series of pre-printed labels for a technician. The essential elements of a valid drug label includes drug name and strength, expiration date, blister card package size (30, 60, tablets etc), number of pills per blister bubble, number of blister bubbles filled per card and possibly a unique card sequence number, which can be used for trace ability. This information is all contained with a drug label that will measure about 2.0” tall and 3.0” wide. The information is in human-readable and in barcode formats.

Operators will load specific drug and strength blister cards into a dispenser. The operator employs a portable RF hand-held barcode scanner to verify loading placement on the Dispense-A-Card system. Each dispenser contains a unique barcode number. The operator scans the drug barcode on the card and then scans the dispenser location. The PC controller on Dispense-A-Card will match the drug information to the dispenser number and notify the operator if any errors occur. In addition, a series of barcode labels are located along the vertical dimension of the dispenser. These labels represent quantity from 1 to 100 cards. The operator will scan the barcode that represents the loading quantity or the new total quantity, if the drug already exists at the dispenser location. The PC will report “real-time” drug usage from the dispense system.

Card Labeling

The barcode format is employed by the CASI design to automatically dispense filled cards, apply a patient label, verification of the drug and patient barcode data against a Master Order file and finally load the accepted card in a convenient customer tote. Filled totes can be further inspected by a Pharmacist or sent directly to a fulfillment system

Dispense-A-Card™

Dispense-A-Card was designed to eliminate the picking and patient labeling functions of most fulfillment processes. Totes containing a pre-determined number of blister cards are completed and sent to a pharmacist for inspection and approval. Cards are then sorted either manually or through sortation equipment. The Dispense-A-Card equipment can be engineered to be the method of fulfillment. Each tote then becomes a competed facility order. Dispense-A-Card will dispense and label drugs specific to a facility location, label each card with a barcoded patient label, verify each card and direct each card into a facility tote. Large facility orders can be sequenced into a series of totes. Orders for drugs not loaded into the Dispense-A-Card system can be completed at manual stations after the tote is completed the auto-fill cycle at the dispensers.

Sort-A Script™

Sort-A-Script is an automated sortation system with front-end barcode scanning ability to read the barcoded Drug and Patient labels located on the blister card and then sort the cards to pre-defined tote assignment table entered into a Sortation PC. The automated sortation system can be less than ten discrete destinations to well above 100 separate destinations. Centerline distances between divert lanes is dependent upon customer tote dimension but generally 12” is a minimum to spaces up to 30”. Sort-A-Card has manifesting functions that include courier manifests, which means a listing of all tote ID numbers for each facility or station. In addition, we provide order fulfillment manifest for each specific tote ID and an overall manifest for the entire order.

Reclaim-A-Card™

Reclaim-A-Card is a blister card reclamation design that is used to automate customer returns. Partially used cards can be loaded into an automated dispenser and delivered to our camera based equipment that will detect the number of used or broken blisters from the card and report the data to the PC controlling the reclamation function. The barcode information on the cards determines the key essential parameter about the reclamation process, which includes expiration date, patient name and location, drug and strength, card sizes, number of tables filled on the card initially. The Reclaim-A-Card system can report to your Host the reclaimed data per patient and if the drug cost table is provided, the actual credited dollar amount by patient on all reclaimed drug. Expiration dates can be employed as a pre-determining factor on whether the patient receives credit or partial credit for a returned drug. Through our software program we can set-up credit criteria’s specific to each patient.

The Reclaim-A-Card design can be expanded to offer de-blister capabilities. Rotary tables are employed with collection vessels. Cards are re-identified by drug and strength. One or several rotary tables are indexed to provide a drug and strength specific vessel located under the de-blister equipment. The camera has indicated the number of tablets to be reclaimed. The de-blistering equipment will now remove the drug from the card and allow the pills to flow into the collection vessel that matches the drug and strength. An additional verification step is a micro-load cell attached to the rotary table that will weigh the bottle before and after the de-blistering process.

Videos and Product Data Sheets

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