Background Robotic dispensing has demonstrated improvements in patient safety and workflow. However, there are no data on staff satisfaction after implementation.

Purpose Quantitative evaluation of staff satisfaction after implementation of a robotic dispensing system in an outpatient pharmacy (OP).

Material and methods Setting: OP of a 1300 bed tertiary teaching hospital in Madrid (Spain). The pharmacist’s role consists of continuous centralised order validation, and patient counselling and education. Dispensing and inventory management is performed entirely by nursing assistants, using a robotic dispensing system (Rowa Vmax) with a conveyor belt system.

Design: This was a cross sectional study involving 8 pharmacists and 9 nursing assistants.

Overall satisfaction index and specific aspects, such as the contribution of the robotic dispensing system to safety, ease of use and stability were evaluated. In addition, the quality of the inventory control, the quality of the integration with other information systems of the OP, and installation and technical support were evaluated by the pharmacy staff.

The results (0–10 points) were expressed as mean (±SD). Comparison between staff category was made using the Mann-Whitney U test.

Results Overall satisfaction index was 8.63 ± 0.744 for pharmacists and 7.78 ± 0.667 for nursing assistants (p = 0.046). The greatest satisfaction was achieved for the increase in safety during dispensing (9.75 ± 0.463 for pharmacists and 8.00 ± 0.707 for nursing assistants; p < 0.001), ease of replenishing the robot (9.25 ± 0.707 and 7.44 ± 0.527; p < 0.001) and ease of handling the new dispensing software (9.13 ± 0.641 and 8.22 ± 0.667; p = 0.027). The aspect that had the lowest score was dispensing speed (7.75 ± 0.886 for pharmacists and 6.33 ± 0.500 for nursing assistants; p = 0.002).

Pharmacists’ satisfaction with the quality of the inventory control, quality of the integration and installation was higher than 8.5 points. Satisfaction with technical support was 7.75 ± 0.707.

All staff members recommended their implementation to other OPs.

Conclusion The results of pharmacists’ and nursing assistants’ satisfaction surveys have provided useful information in evaluating the quality of implementation of the robotic dispensing system. For most of the issues, satisfaction was greater in pharmacists than in nursing assistants. The only aspect in need of improvement is the dispensing speed of the system of conveyor belts.

References and/or Acknowledgements

1. Beard RJ, Smith P. Springerplus 2013;2:295

References and/or AcknowledgementsNo conflict of interest.