Friday, Jan 13, 2017

Dubai: The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) inaugurated its first ‘robot’ pharmacy at Rashid Hospital on Thursday.

The smart pharmacy will be deploying a robot for the first time in the UAE for dispensing and prescribing medication, a spokesperson of DHA said. The robot dispenses the prescribed medication with a click of a button based on a bar code, minimising any human error.

Humaid Al Qutami, chairman of the Board and director-general of the DHA, announced that the authority will soon be adopting the robot in all DHA hospitals. The robot is one of the latest smart technologies adopted by the authority to meet the 2016/2021 strategy, which aims to achieve a happy and healthy society.

The robot, which can store up to 35,000 medicines and dispense around 12 prescriptions in less than one minute, will start serving customers from Sunday.

The smart pharmacy was inaugurated in the presence of Dr Ali Al Syed, director of the Pharmaceutical Services Department; Dr Ahmad Bin Kalban, CEO of Hospital Services Sector, and Dr Alya Al Mazroui, CEO of Rashid Hospital.

Dr Al Syed said the robot can dispense up to 12 prescriptions in less than one minute, reducing customer’s waiting time. He added that the dispensing process will be paper free as the robot will store the prescription as soon as the doctor documents it electronically. He added that depending on the robot to dispense the medication will allow the pharmacist to focus on giving the customers the correct instructions on taking the medication.

Staff Report

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