Background The authors wanted to compare the traditional system of dispensing medicines and the new automated Kardex medicines storage and dispensing system.

Purpose To describe the process of introducing an automated Kardex medicines storage and dispensing system in the pharmacy service and to evaluate its use during the first three months.

Materials and methods To prepare for the internal Kardex system drug list The authors excluded from the selection process artificial nutrition, anticancer drugs, thermolabile products, antidotes and areas of medical exclusivity. Each drug was entered into the Kardex system software (Mercurio) with maximum and minimum allowed stock levels, as well as a physical space required for its intrinsic volume and repackaging. The authors started to use the Kardex system for hospital dispensing in December 2010 and the assessment period was three months of active use. The authors used the pharmacy Mercurio and Sinfhos software to acquire and capture data.

Results Initially, the internal Kardex system was used for 62% of all pharmacy drugs. The percentage of free holes was 25.5% in week 3 of activity, decreasing to 9.14% in week 12. The average number of daily prescriptions dispensed and properly completed was 7.6 in week 3 and increased to 38.6 at week 12, whereas the traditional storage system catered for an average of 14.4 orders. The difficulties The authors experienced were mainly due to lack of medicines and lack of repackaged drugs for stock.

Conclusions In spite of the great initial difficulty and the resistance of nursing assistants to the Pharmacy service, The authors consider that the automated Kardex medicines storage and dispensing system offers us advantages. The authors can dispense prescribed drugs and operate Pyxis replacement stations with more efficient management of human resources. The Kardex system software provides information on incidents that arise during dispensing, to make it possible to quantify and analyse our mistakes.