Robot will be Rx for Grady's long prescription waits

Moreover, the hospital is shifting some of the pharmacy pickup sites to a building about two blocks from the hospital.

The main pharmacy and central refill offices will shift to a new dispensing site on Coca-Cola Place. The senior citizen pharmacy will remain at the hospital to maintain the convenience for them.

People who use the neighborhood clinics will still pick up their medicines there.

Even in a hospital where problems have been countless, the pharmacy at Grady stands out. In the late 1990s, people could wait eight hours for prescriptions to be filled in a pharmacy with insufficient seating, recalled the Rev. Timothy McDonald, a leader of the Grady Coalition advocacy group.

“It was tense, stressful. Elders trying to stand up on canes,” McDonald said. “It was rather inhumane.”

In general, people felt the long waits sent a message: Because they didn’t have a job, and didn’t have insurance, they didn’t matter, McDonald said.

Time has brought change, and improvement. As recent as two years ago, people had enough seating but were still waiting up to four hours. The wait this year was down to two hours, faster for refills.

“Our goal is to modernize the outpatient pharmacy, and improve the experience for the customers and employees,” said Rondell Jaggers, who took over the operation in February 2008.

He hopes the new robot and pharmacy set-up will bring wait times down to 30 minutes.

The robot drug dispenser will replace three smaller robots purchased about six years ago, each of which processes 100 prescriptions an hour. But those machines have been breaking down.

The new machine uses air-driven pneumatic tubes and a space-age mechanical arm. It electronically receives a prescription, prints the label, dispenses the pills, checks for accuracy and places the little bottle on a conveyor belt to a pharmacist, who makes a final check.

Grady officials expect to purchase the robot by the end of the month, using contributions raised in the year since the hospital leadership passed to a new board of directors. That board vowed to save the financially strapped hospital, and advocates have raised some $265 million to replace antiquated equipment and improve services.

Some people sitting in the Grady pharmacy, waiting for their number to be called, welcomed the new automation; others worried a bit.

Carolyn Tigner, 54, had been sitting for about 45 minutes, awaiting two prescriptions. The waiting area is an auditorium with about 150 seats. It’s dimly lit and quiet, like a movie house where the film never starts.

Tigner, of Decatur brings crossword puzzles to pass the time. But the woman who has diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems doesn’t put a lot of faith in a new pharmacy robot. She’s concerned that the machine will make mistakes on prescriptions, and that it will cost pharmacy workers their jobs.

Jaggers, the pharmacy executive director, said he hopes to accomplish any reductions to his 80-person staff through attrition.

The robot is a major part of the restructuring of outpatient pharmacy service at Grady, which is considered among the most vital services at the safety net facility. Many of the people filling prescriptions have nowhere else to go, as they have no health insurance and little money. Many pay nothing for the medicine. Most payments come from government assistance, Jaggers said.

The Grady outpatient pharmacy is a massive operation, filling 1.1 million prescriptions annually.

Michael Hall, 52, has sat through the four-hour waits at Grady.

“It wasn’t no fun,” he said. “I’d walk around, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee.”

The man who has trouble with his pancreas hopes the robot brings down the wait time, since long waits are a strain.

“I just got out of the hospital Friday,” he said.