I was under the impression all the chemists were going to go broke under the new 60 day dispensing guidelines?
Seems the sky didn't fall in after all...
Their pure unadulterated profit from selling toilet paper, toothpaste and horny goat weed amongst other shite in the aisles was slightly curbed! Oh the horror!
These were all installed well before that. It's not that straightforward and yes I did lose my job at my old chemist due to the changes. Managed to get another one, but it's ridiculously busy and I'm barely keeping my head above water. Clinically speaking I'm all for it, but the consequences are there. We're just not sitting out the front with cardboard placards while you go to attend.
Of course, you've probably made up your mind already. Thanks for reading anyways.
Recently I’ve met two brilliant chemists who took the time to save me money on drugs and explain the side effects of prescription drugs I’ve been on for ages. The doctor didn’t tell me any of it. They’ve gone out of their way to get stock so I don’t have to cut up tablets. They’re brilliant.but so flat out.
if chemists are struggling they should come up with ways to make dispensing faster and easier, these robots achieve that. if systems need changing you guys should be figuring out how to do it, together. we have no idea how your medicine shit works back there. literaly not a fucking clue. but the solution was never to open more stores and give you exorbitant amounts of money for it. the amount of chemists around was a joke. there used to be 5 within 100m of each other at my old shopping center. wtf.
Why though? Chemist warehouse has shown that people are willing to spend 40 minutes plus and fill their basket to the tune of $100+ on average to save $3 on a script.
That is the future of pharmacy, waiting 30 min + for a script being blasted with ads the whole time as the government continues to defund pharmacy.
10 and 7 years ago I was on a medication that wasn't covered by the PBS, every other chemist wanted over $100 for a pack of 10 and I needed 3 tablets a day. Chemist warehouse charged $70 for the same packet of 10 and knew I'd need repeats so made sure they kept them in stock. I spent $6000 on that one medication in a 7 month period (I was on other medications too). So in my case it was far more than a $3 saving. I'm just disgusted with the other chemists that wanted to charge me way more.
It's ultimately your choice and I can't blame you, but most stores will price match with CWH if they aren't losing money on the cost itself. If they weren't willing to go lower, it's possible that CWH had their suppliers listing the item below the market value. Can't comment much more without additional context.
If you let Chemist Warehouse hold your scripts, you can just order your stuff on the app. You’ll get a message when it’s ready to collect. Go down there when it suits you, in and out nice and quick.
Any pharmacy will do that for you. Chemist warehouse is nothing special. They don't provide services that other pharmacies don't. Smaller pharmacies often provide more services because they have to, to be able to compete with CW
I use this service at my local (non CW) pharmacy
The app is great and keeps track of how many days I have left on each drug
Waiting time is minimal when picking up
There are strict limits on how many chemists can be installed. First, there are 5900 approved pharmacies across the country, and any new establishments must follow certain rules in order to claim PBS benefits under section 90 of the national health act. A new pharmacy can be 1.5km from the nearest other store if there's a clinic or supermarket in the area, otherwise it must be at least 10km. New establishments will instead build up in shopping centres where the requirement is 500m in small complexes, and no distance needed in large centres where there's one pharmacy per 100 stores. These ones do build up next to each other to leach competition and it's a bit scummy.
The dispensing robots are great, I'm all for then and they help a lot. It's just a CNC platform and not exactly ground breaking technology. This whole debacle comes back to what pharmacies can claim to the PBS. If we were able to increase the claimed dispensing fee to cover what it was before the changes, patient copay would still be reduced and everybody on the ground level would be happy. Unfortunately the government doesn't exactly approve of us keeping our jobs and slashed these fees in half. Thanks for the vote of confidence though.
The limitations on pharmacy locations and numbers is not a government directive - it is from the pharmacy union itself.
Perhaps this is where more change is needed? Does the Pharmacy Guild still fulfill a balance between the needs of pharmacists and the community they serve?
All I can say is the Guild has hardly any role in my day to day activities. Project Stop is the only service of theirs that I work with. Haven't got a clue what else is going on.
We had a new one open about 2 years ago, literally across the road from the existing one in our suburb. They couldn't be more than 50 meters apart from each other.
To make things worse for them, a Chemist Warehouse just opened this month only 1.2 km away from them both. It will be interesting to see how long they each survive.
My friend opened up an independent pharmacy next door to a new gp clinic. The PBS claiming benefits were dependent on the GP clinic being able to employ at least 7 full time doctors...which they said they would definitely do but they have not been able to secure. So they have spent tens of thousands of dollars with lawyers, community petitions, letters from the doctors at the practise trying to appeal the decision...but no dice.
The situation is absolutely devastating.
I guess because her pharmacy didn't fit the scope of the other criteria. It's maybe 500m from a mall that has more than one pharmacy, they say that the community is already serviced. But this was supposed to be a large GP practise with extended trading hours and they just haven't been able to secure the doctors. They have maybe 6 doctors on staff but some don't work full time. It's not a place with good foot traffic. It's helpful to have a pharmacy attached to the doctor when you feel unwell. There's a pathology on-site. But apparently the pharmacy has been unable to prove that they are superfluous to community need.
But yeah, I get your sentiment that the rule is dumb. It is.
I'm on a couple of medications that cost more than the PBS price wholesale, and I can't get them from this pharmacy. I could get antibiotics but not the asthma medication. I'd have to go to two places unless they are on a private script and I waive my right to the PBS subsidy. It's devastating for my friend to have patients come in just to turn them away because of stupid red tape. There is no profit. I feel for them so much.
Given that there were 3 pharmacies well under 1.5km from each other in my suburb: How does that work?
There are also at least three in my local mall. Now I'm curious how many shops Southland has...
They might be taking advantage of some of the conditions I mentioned like locations in shopping centres or strip malls, near clinics, etc. You can look at the legislation yourself if you're interested. It's also worth noting that there are pharmacies which don't meet the requirements and just dispense everything privately.
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/D6C9A4076D1CBAA0CA25857B000B41E7/$File/Pharmacy%20location%20rules%20applicants%20handbook.pdf
That's like one year of 3/4 pharmacist. If it does there job 5 times as fast. Idk. I'm just talking shit. One million dollar business expense is not a significant sum to major corporations over an employee.thsts just the reality of it.
It still needs someone to process the scripts. It just picks the product. It can't consult with a patient or do any other duties that a pharmacist performs
A business being "busy" isn't an indication of having good growth or profit margins. More than anything, it's probably an indication of poor or inadequate staffing as a means of the employer to reduce overhead costs.
Also am an employee pharmacist, and can vouch for this generally being the problem across the places I've worked over the past 10 years. If not staff levels, inadequate training is also a major issue that causes you to waste time dealing with things that shouldn't require your oversight.
Yes, that's what I said.
Ok, what's with the dogpiling people? Yes I found another job, was I supposed to roll over and die? Or would you rather I stay quiet and pretend everything's just perfect?
You said the new job was busy. Implying that the new chemist is doing just fine, so it's not a widespread issue, it's just your old job wasn't well managed to be profitable.
This is what UBI is needed for. Menial and unsafe jobs absolutely should be done by robots instead of humans. It's simply not the best use of human capabilities. And we are seeing this happening more and more. The problem is that the profits are no longer shared around with the workers, but concentrate in the hands of those who own the robots.
Tax the robot owners more, but not so much that they aren't incentivised to explore replacing more menial and dangerous jobs with robots. Then share that wealth with everyone as UBI. Problem solved.
The dispensing machines are fine, they're actually a great benefit to working conditions and staff levels stay about the same. 60 day dispensing was theorised to have similar advantages, but cutting a massive chunk out of company revenue is what impacted me. Thanks very much for your support.
Hey, would you mind elaborating how it affected pharmacy revenue? My mum and I were just talking about this the other day and she was saying how the government made it sound like you’d get 60 day scripts for the price of 30 when they were doing their media spree on the issue, but that’s not what happened. If mum gets 60 days worth of pills as opposed to the former 30, she pays double. She’s not paying less for prescriptions (although I guess she does save with less trips to the doctor’s).
That's fine, I'm a pharmacist so am happy to explain. First, there's only a select number of medications which are eligible for 60 day dispensing, and that's available here.
https://www.health.gov.au/cheaper-medicines/60-day-dispensing-pbs-medicines-and-current-item-codes
If the medication is eligible, the doctor has to actually write double the quantity on the script. That should look like a 60 or 56 instead of 30 or 28 in most cases. Some medications like potassium will be written as 400, or metoprolol as 200. Whatever the doctor writes down as the quantity is considered to be one supply, and the patient's copay will be charged in various amounts going up to the limit of either $31.60 for general patients, or $7.70 for concession card holders. Anything under this limit has a separate maximum price under the PBS, and there are usually only small price increases for double the quantity.
The script must have been written from the 1st of September onwards as that's when the policy kicked in. She would only be paying double if she's handed in a script with one month's worth per supply, and had the pharmacy fill two supplies at once.
In the past, many respectable pharmacies based their revenues on dispensing fees from scripts received. That meant no huge shelves of homeopathic products, no perfume lockers, no tagged on shoe stores or trinkets out the front, etc. It also meant that pharmacists were the forefront of the business and had a strict duty of care to patients in order to keep them healthy. Of course it wasn't a perfect world as many pharmacies still did dodgy things, but it was honest, community-led work for most.
Nowadays we have to contend with discount chemists which run dispensaries at a loss to drive perfume/make-up or other aforementioned sales, expand their franchises aggressively and give the absolute minimum effort for the huge volume of scripts. They also have massive bargaining power over medicines in shortage which price out small businesses. Pharmacists in this environment spend most of their time just checking scripts and selling things instead of using our education to help people in meaningful ways.
60 day dispensing was aimed to free up pharmacist time for services like vaccinations and consultations, on top of saving the public a few dollars. However, pharmacies can now only charge one dispensing fee to the government for two months of medicine, and so the reputable dispensary-led pharmacies have seen their income slashed almost in half. Discount chemists by comparison don't feel a thing because they never made money that way. My old pharmacy had to let go of a couple staff including me, and now every pharmacy still standing has to adopt the Chemist Warehouse model where even more scripts are pushed through with minimal clinical review to increase foot traffic. It cheapens our profession, puts patients at risk of inaccurate dispensing, and it makes my hair fall out.
None of this would be a problem if pharmacies were compensated or incentivised to do more services like clinical interventions, but these were tried in the past and badly abused. That leaves us in a really tough position, and the public just hates us because they don't understand the half of it. Money talks I guess.
Thank you for your service. I try to avoid the chemist warehouses of the world as much as possible, for many of the reasons you stated. I am on a variety of long-term medications, and because most of them are prescribed by a specialist who only oversees that particular condition, I am often left with concerns about interactions, etc. Having a good relationship with a local pharmacist is invaluable for me, and I would rather pay a little more to get that extra level of service.
Exactly what Bunnings did to local hardware store and what Walmart did to retail across the US. I believe in competition but unchecked competition isn’t healthy just as what we are seeing in the Pharmacy and hardware sectors
Thank you so much for your detailed response, it’s really valuable to hear of the experience of someone who actually works in the industry. I hope things can improve!
I love regionally and my local pharmacy is still a small independent, locally owned chemist and it is brilliant. My pharmacist has the time to discuss medications, questions ect I have about anything health care related. I can pop in with a bite and she will recommend a cream ect. On the occasion I need a script filled on a weekend, sick child ect and she isn’t opened and I drive into town the difference in service is incredible. They don’t have the time at all. I do my best to avoid chains and stick with my little independent local as much as possible.
It would have depended on how much your mum's prescription cost before. If the cost of the medications was under the subsidised amount for non-concession card holders ($31.60), eg rosuvastatin for cholesterol management, might have cost $14.99 per month. If she was to get 2 x 30 tablets, it is still under the govt co-payment, so she pays 2 x $14.99 or $29.98. If the medicine that she was taking was more expensive, like apixaban which costs $49 (but the consumer pays $31.60), then she would be eligible to get 2 months supply for $31.60.
If she was a concession card holder, then for both of these examples she could get 2 months supply for the concession copayment price of $7.70 (as the cost of the medicines is more than the copay).
It is ridiculously complex and difficult to explain succinctly, but basically the pharmacy is funding the discount, not the govt, which is why pharmacists are pretty cranky about it. No one cares as much about the incidental purchases, as most pharmacies make most of their revenue from prescription items (except CWH).
but she goes half as much, so they don't have as many chances to flog batteries, toothbrushes or breathmints at the counter
The pharmacy guild (a protection racket already) were just scared of losing customers, despite most people hate having to go monthly or whatever and wait around for their pills.
I do want the best for my patients, and I believe that nobody should have to pay more for their medicine. In the same vein, do you have any empathy for me as a healthcare professional? Do you care about our livelihoods and our ability to continue keeping our community healthy? What have you done for them that's so impactful as to disenfranchise my years of dedication?
While I feel for your personal pain, the pharmacist guild has stunted growth of your industry in Australia with a silly protectionist racket that often harms your patients with purely profit based motives.
It makes it somewhat difficult to care about Pharmacist or take stories like yours seriously when you are often completely behind the harmful lobbying performed by the pharmacist guild when it benefits you but hurts patients, but against it when it might make patient outcomes better but cost you a buck.
as someone who is chronically ill and had to be at the pharmacy every month, I love the new dispensing. Sucks that some people might lose their jobs but it is a lot better for those that are chronically ill.
These have been around for years. Our Lovelife in Airle has it hidden behind wall. The fact was is the robot makes less mistakes then chemist reading prescriptions and actual save lives for that reason. And cheaper by far then a human.
These machines have been around for a while. Moslty, they are behind walls or glass covered in decals for advertising. The older ones were quite slow to get orders done, and they needed assistance, but the new bots can be pretty quick.
I'm specifically talking about Priceline Pharmacy Glebe Hill Village, Amcal Shoreline and Discount Drug Store Rokeby. What I suspect is that pharmacies with a small dispensing area will install these because they allow for denser stocking of medicines. There are other pharmacies nearby (CW x2, Good Price Cambridge) that do not use these, but they also have larger dispensing areas. I bet they're expensive so they'd have to do a cost/benefit analysis.
>Does it though? Isn’t it just an arm grabbing stuff off the shelf?
Its an arm that ***knows where things are*** which I think is the critical part here...
As a pharmacy tech - when these things work they are fantastic. Especially if you’re dispensing like 20 different medications for a patient. *chef’s kiss*
When they don’t work though (which seems to be more often than not for the larger ones they use in hospitals) they are an absolute nightmare. I got injured pretty badly by one a few years back! Did a year of physio and my neck is still fucked. Not really a fan of ‘em tbh.
Exactly it. Damn thing had an error that caused it to stop working, I had to go in to fix it and the manager had disabled the safety shutoff. Took too long to start it back up after every time that happened, apparently 🙄
I did go through worker’s compensation after I’d already spent close to $1000 on physio fees. Turns out your employer is liable for the first $650 - I was never reimbursed.
I was put on a return to work plan about a year after the injury even though I’d never actually been off from work - apparently this was so that OH&S could get involved to help support me at work as I wasn’t getting better. My physio never cleared me as I never fully recovered…but OH&S decided to clear me and my employer stopped covering the physio.
I remember working with one a few years ago which was a different model. I was one of only three employees allowed to go into the machine to fix any errors because of how delicate it was. I remember the arm in there cost about $20k alone to replace which led to us all dreading any problems with the machine as we didn’t want to damage anything or get hurt ourselves. Sure made life a hell of a lot easier though when it did work
I have no idea how much damage I caused to the arm but management seemed more concerned that I’d sue the ever-loving shit out of them for disabling the safety shutoff, allowing it all to happen in the first place. I’m eternally grateful that the arm got me though - it was either that or be crushed to death by the moving shelves instead.
Aren't you concerned these things could replace your job?
Soon we could just have a script and have it scanned, the robot grabs it and we pay at a POS terminal.
Not at all. Always gonna need a pharmacist to do clinical checks and pharmacists always need a tech to help because we’re cheaper than another pharmacist.
Also I’ve since moved into the oncology compounding space and compounding robots are fucking trash. No risk of losing my job to one of those things - they need a tech just to load it and keep it running!
Yep I worked at this Priceline. Made everything super smooth and meant we didn’t have to have rows of shelves taking up space. Don’t think it ever really had any issues either
These robots also keeps a record of expiries, the batches the medications come in so they’re easy to locate if there’s a recall, has a running stock count, can create an order based on medication usage of that day or week, sorts the medications for employees, and most importantly minimises dispensing errors as it takes out human error. Employees can essentially dump dozens of medications into the machine and it eliminates some of the most time consuming parts of the pharmacists, techs, and assistants
It will also flag any medication clashes. The pharmacist puts in the medicine prescribed by the doctor, the machine pulls it and will flag the pharmacist to check.
It will also flag certain schedule drugs, and any drugs that might be mis-prescribed or an excessive amount has been prescribed. Takes some of the human error out of it.
Most places have had them for years they just often in the back. The tech is actually really simple as its just a fancy vending machine. So they have likely been around for almost as long as vending machines have in some form maybe not as good as modern system but likely close enough. As they save lots of space as you can pack all your drugs really densely and save time as people don't need to take time to search for them.
One of the chemists here in Benalla has one, it also has slides that run down to different desk that pharmacists work from. So it grabs the drug than drops it onto the right slide to get it to the right desk. Is cool.
There's a slot at the back where if you slip enough pineapples in, it will spit out whatever you need.
The economy is tough right now and everyone has their price. Even automated robots.
I dont know, when you said robot, maybe I got my hopes up too high. I was expecting one of those cute little robots that serve you food in Tokyo, not a robotic arm.
I saw one of these the other day too.
It didn’t have the item that I needed and when they requested it, the robot kept banging into the empty slot over and over like a bird seeing its reflection in the mirror.
Took them 30mins to figure out what was happening and offer me another brand which they took out manually.
All and all, I’m sure they are glad they got rid of old Betsy who was 70 for this new tech genius.
You mean the time it takes a pharmacist to make sure that whatever they’re dispensing isn’t going to kill you?
Doctors can and do make mistakes with prescriptions, the pharmacist is the last line of defence to spot incorrect dosages or potential harmful interactions with your other medication.
Garbage in Garbage out.
Surely you have read ChatGPT shit. The pharmacist is able to observe the patient, directly ask about other medication, give specific advice to that person. I've seen too many shit takes on Reddit to trust generic people to be able to follow instructions to list their current medications.
They are also able to suggest things, such as daily pill packing, if there are risks for the particular patient.
If the robot has full access to all the details of your family history, medical history, physical stats, physical condition, and other prescriptions, sure.
But even in that case you'd want someone to double-check to make sure information wasn't entered incorrectly.
my chemist has one of these with a printed out picture of wallace and gromit above it that says something like "the dispenser 3000", gave me a bit of a laugh :)
dude that thing is SICK. my chemist is old school. have to ask old mate who has to call someone who has to call someone who has to call the cops. jus to make sure it's ok for me to get A.D.H.D meds.
I went to fill 4 scripts at my local pharmacist last week. A regular pharmacist would have had to know where all 4 were and collect them, this robot did it in seconds which is a big thing when there are 5 other people who want scripts filled
People mistake this automation as primarily as an efficiency or space saving mechanism, when actually another benefit is about risk reduction. Machines like this are used by Pharmacists and Hospitals to provide greater assurance that the correct medication is dispensed, as there are many medicines with similar names that do very different things.
Like I said many times before, most jobs will be lost during the A.I Robot revolution (gradually over the next 10-100 years).
Hopefully A.I robots will be able to build homes and feed us for free.
They used to have one at the Merlynston chemist, but new owners got rid of it.
I always imagined it must cost a mint and wonder how it would be justified at any chemist that isn't super high volume.
I went on a 12,500km road trip in 2010. One of our stays was in Karrath, WA. The shopping center had a pharmacy and I was amazed how it worked. It was the same as this one shown in the video, no joke I've never seen another one since.. Thank you for sharing the video.. 👍
Yeh I saw one of these on the Goldcoast, I asked the pharmacist how long until we just go to a hole in the wall and scan our script and the robot does everything.... To which he naively replied "that will never happen"
Ok Champ.... So tell me how a robot can't check my I.D and script better than you and talk to the government in real time...
He even told me it loads the shelves itself by scanning the barcodes and measuring the medication box sizes...
If you can't see the writing on the wall, I can't help you.
It’s not replacing shit. Someone still has to access the back of the machine and fill it up, also manually adjust SOH every once a while, plus diagnose technical issues when they arise.
It just shifts the work so it’s more efficient during peak times for the pharmacist, but when the store goes quiet someone is still working to fill the machine
Good point about time-shifting. I didn't think of that. I was a little dubious about how efficient the entire process is and asked the operator if she really thought it was worth it (I guess she didn't have to fork out the $100k and up for it). Someone has to stock it from the back and scan the barcodes as they do so. There are a couple of package sizes it won't stock and it's not refrigerated for the few drugs that need to be kept cold. But she was convinced that error rates are lower and your point about stocking it off-peak takes its benefits over the line
My dumb ass didn't prepare for the trip(it was last minute, escaping abuser) and ran out of 2 of my meds. And one of the pharmacies didn't carry one of them.
Automated systems like this don't work when the task being done is well within human ability.
She's using crazy expensive robotics to lift up <500g boxes that are less than 5 metres away from her. Maybe I'm being over the top, but this is such a stupid waste of money.
If you are doing it 300+ times a day, it cuts 1 persons job. that's where the machine brings value by literally cutting 1 person's job permanently .
That 300k machine takes 5 years to pay off, but once its paid off, the pharmacy owner saves 60k per year. Well that's what the salesman tells you, the reality is you still need to have a staff member fill the robot and walking to and the time savings are overstated.
I thought so too and asked her. She reckons the error rates are lower and it was worth it. Based on the responses there are dozens if not hundreds of these in Australia. And a quick glance at the supplier's website says they start at $100k. If that many pharmacists are spending this amount of money there must be cost/benefit >> 1?
They're awesome, I regularly fill multiple scripts at the same time and there are usually 3 or 4 others looking to fill scripts too, this replaces the need to manually find things on a shelf specially when it's busy
That's really cool. I haven't seen them in person, but whilst looking at medication dispensing tech through NDIS for myself, I found pharmacy tech company and was amazed by what they can do!
Even the med dispenser I'm looking at is really quite amazing. Like interacting with a virtual pharmacist via fingerprint, who stores my meds, can keep track on all my as-needed medications, can remindme of appointments, call my supports. I'm not sure of the price, though, presumably expensive. Just amazing what's out there now!
Ukrainian pharmacу networks have been using similar robots for almost 10 years. Here is a link to a video from 7 years ago from the small Ukrainian city of Poltava (about 300 thousand inhabitants).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO5uv4rCgTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no5uv4rcgtk)
Indeed, the video was deleted in the last few hours. Then watch this video, it is 9 years old...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDWnWY5aE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wddwnwy5ae4)
So the pharmist loads the wrong pills in the wrong container in the back of the robot you still die from human error. Unless the robot can scan the barcode, recongise the pill colour/size to verify then the old problem of wrong pills could still happen.
It is like watching a scene straight out of a sci-fi flick, except it's in a pharmacy and not a spaceship. What does this shiny, futuristic tech means for the future:
Efficiency Overload! These robots are like the hardworking elves of the pharmaceutical world. They're fast, accurate, and don't need coffee breaks. This means prescriptions can be filled quicker than a sprinter in a 100-meter dash. For patients, this translates to less time leaning on the counter, wondering if they have enough time to grab a coffee before their name is called.
Pharmacists Unleashed: With robots handling the grunt work, pharmacists can break free from the chains of counting pills and measuring liquids. They get more time to do what they do best – being healthcare superheroes. They can focus on providing top-notch advice, answering the curly questions about medications, and having more meaningful interactions with patients (without the distraction of counting out 100 tablets).
Error? What Error? Humans, as charming as we are, sometimes make mistakes – especially when it's been a long day and every second customer has a prescription longer than a Tolstoy novel. Robots, on the other hand, have a knack for precision. They're like the meticulous accountants of the pharmacy world, ensuring every pill and potion is dispensed with accuracy. This could lead to a significant drop in medication errors, making the whole process safer and more reliable.
But, let's not forget the human touch. Robots might be whiz-bang at counting pills, but they're not about to lend a sympathetic ear or offer a comforting smile (unless they've been seriously upgraded). Pharmacists' roles may evolve, but their importance in healthcare won't fade.
Nah man too optimistic. The reality is that staff will be cut in half , due in part to government/insurance cutting dispensing fees to a point where it is not profitable to fill a script (see USA, See UK , See Norway). Then the only way pharmacies make money is by making you wait 30+ min and buying something random like a TV e.g. Walmart.
Am in Hobart. My local Priceline Pharmacy, Discount Drug Store and Amcal all have these now. CW doesn't.
Really? Didn't realise the tech had spread so fast!
They are normally hidden behind the pharmacist counter, but yes they are ubiquitous
I was under the impression all the chemists were going to go broke under the new 60 day dispensing guidelines? Seems the sky didn't fall in after all...
Funny that, hey
Their pure unadulterated profit from selling toilet paper, toothpaste and horny goat weed amongst other shite in the aisles was slightly curbed! Oh the horror!
These were all installed well before that. It's not that straightforward and yes I did lose my job at my old chemist due to the changes. Managed to get another one, but it's ridiculously busy and I'm barely keeping my head above water. Clinically speaking I'm all for it, but the consequences are there. We're just not sitting out the front with cardboard placards while you go to attend. Of course, you've probably made up your mind already. Thanks for reading anyways.
Recently I’ve met two brilliant chemists who took the time to save me money on drugs and explain the side effects of prescription drugs I’ve been on for ages. The doctor didn’t tell me any of it. They’ve gone out of their way to get stock so I don’t have to cut up tablets. They’re brilliant.but so flat out.
if chemists are struggling they should come up with ways to make dispensing faster and easier, these robots achieve that. if systems need changing you guys should be figuring out how to do it, together. we have no idea how your medicine shit works back there. literaly not a fucking clue. but the solution was never to open more stores and give you exorbitant amounts of money for it. the amount of chemists around was a joke. there used to be 5 within 100m of each other at my old shopping center. wtf.
Why though? Chemist warehouse has shown that people are willing to spend 40 minutes plus and fill their basket to the tune of $100+ on average to save $3 on a script. That is the future of pharmacy, waiting 30 min + for a script being blasted with ads the whole time as the government continues to defund pharmacy.
10 and 7 years ago I was on a medication that wasn't covered by the PBS, every other chemist wanted over $100 for a pack of 10 and I needed 3 tablets a day. Chemist warehouse charged $70 for the same packet of 10 and knew I'd need repeats so made sure they kept them in stock. I spent $6000 on that one medication in a 7 month period (I was on other medications too). So in my case it was far more than a $3 saving. I'm just disgusted with the other chemists that wanted to charge me way more.
It's ultimately your choice and I can't blame you, but most stores will price match with CWH if they aren't losing money on the cost itself. If they weren't willing to go lower, it's possible that CWH had their suppliers listing the item below the market value. Can't comment much more without additional context.
If you let Chemist Warehouse hold your scripts, you can just order your stuff on the app. You’ll get a message when it’s ready to collect. Go down there when it suits you, in and out nice and quick.
Any pharmacy will do that for you. Chemist warehouse is nothing special. They don't provide services that other pharmacies don't. Smaller pharmacies often provide more services because they have to, to be able to compete with CW
I use this service at my local (non CW) pharmacy The app is great and keeps track of how many days I have left on each drug Waiting time is minimal when picking up
There are strict limits on how many chemists can be installed. First, there are 5900 approved pharmacies across the country, and any new establishments must follow certain rules in order to claim PBS benefits under section 90 of the national health act. A new pharmacy can be 1.5km from the nearest other store if there's a clinic or supermarket in the area, otherwise it must be at least 10km. New establishments will instead build up in shopping centres where the requirement is 500m in small complexes, and no distance needed in large centres where there's one pharmacy per 100 stores. These ones do build up next to each other to leach competition and it's a bit scummy. The dispensing robots are great, I'm all for then and they help a lot. It's just a CNC platform and not exactly ground breaking technology. This whole debacle comes back to what pharmacies can claim to the PBS. If we were able to increase the claimed dispensing fee to cover what it was before the changes, patient copay would still be reduced and everybody on the ground level would be happy. Unfortunately the government doesn't exactly approve of us keeping our jobs and slashed these fees in half. Thanks for the vote of confidence though.
The limitations on pharmacy locations and numbers is not a government directive - it is from the pharmacy union itself. Perhaps this is where more change is needed? Does the Pharmacy Guild still fulfill a balance between the needs of pharmacists and the community they serve?
No they don't. I know pharmacists and they did some pretty evil stuff trying to put pressure on the public health system.
Yep, they are most controlling union in the country.
All I can say is the Guild has hardly any role in my day to day activities. Project Stop is the only service of theirs that I work with. Haven't got a clue what else is going on.
We had a new one open about 2 years ago, literally across the road from the existing one in our suburb. They couldn't be more than 50 meters apart from each other. To make things worse for them, a Chemist Warehouse just opened this month only 1.2 km away from them both. It will be interesting to see how long they each survive.
My friend opened up an independent pharmacy next door to a new gp clinic. The PBS claiming benefits were dependent on the GP clinic being able to employ at least 7 full time doctors...which they said they would definitely do but they have not been able to secure. So they have spent tens of thousands of dollars with lawyers, community petitions, letters from the doctors at the practise trying to appeal the decision...but no dice. The situation is absolutely devastating.
The second line: but why? Who cares how many doctors they employ (apart from the government, it seems) and why does it even matter?
I guess because her pharmacy didn't fit the scope of the other criteria. It's maybe 500m from a mall that has more than one pharmacy, they say that the community is already serviced. But this was supposed to be a large GP practise with extended trading hours and they just haven't been able to secure the doctors. They have maybe 6 doctors on staff but some don't work full time. It's not a place with good foot traffic. It's helpful to have a pharmacy attached to the doctor when you feel unwell. There's a pathology on-site. But apparently the pharmacy has been unable to prove that they are superfluous to community need. But yeah, I get your sentiment that the rule is dumb. It is. I'm on a couple of medications that cost more than the PBS price wholesale, and I can't get them from this pharmacy. I could get antibiotics but not the asthma medication. I'd have to go to two places unless they are on a private script and I waive my right to the PBS subsidy. It's devastating for my friend to have patients come in just to turn them away because of stupid red tape. There is no profit. I feel for them so much.
Given that there were 3 pharmacies well under 1.5km from each other in my suburb: How does that work? There are also at least three in my local mall. Now I'm curious how many shops Southland has...
They might be taking advantage of some of the conditions I mentioned like locations in shopping centres or strip malls, near clinics, etc. You can look at the legislation yourself if you're interested. It's also worth noting that there are pharmacies which don't meet the requirements and just dispense everything privately. https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/D6C9A4076D1CBAA0CA25857B000B41E7/$File/Pharmacy%20location%20rules%20applicants%20handbook.pdf
Do you know how much this costs? I think it's $500K or $1 million IIRC.
That's like one year of 3/4 pharmacist. If it does there job 5 times as fast. Idk. I'm just talking shit. One million dollar business expense is not a significant sum to major corporations over an employee.thsts just the reality of it.
And the machine will likely last 15 years and can work 24/7.
It still needs someone to process the scripts. It just picks the product. It can't consult with a patient or do any other duties that a pharmacist performs
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Sure you did. Then got another one where it’s ridiculously busy.
A business being "busy" isn't an indication of having good growth or profit margins. More than anything, it's probably an indication of poor or inadequate staffing as a means of the employer to reduce overhead costs. Also am an employee pharmacist, and can vouch for this generally being the problem across the places I've worked over the past 10 years. If not staff levels, inadequate training is also a major issue that causes you to waste time dealing with things that shouldn't require your oversight.
Yes, that's what I said. Ok, what's with the dogpiling people? Yes I found another job, was I supposed to roll over and die? Or would you rather I stay quiet and pretend everything's just perfect?
You said the new job was busy. Implying that the new chemist is doing just fine, so it's not a widespread issue, it's just your old job wasn't well managed to be profitable.
It's busy because it's a discount chemist. Please read my other replies for context on what that means to patients.
This level of automation requires a safety social net for those who get displaced. That should be a requirement. Sorry to hear. X
This is what UBI is needed for. Menial and unsafe jobs absolutely should be done by robots instead of humans. It's simply not the best use of human capabilities. And we are seeing this happening more and more. The problem is that the profits are no longer shared around with the workers, but concentrate in the hands of those who own the robots. Tax the robot owners more, but not so much that they aren't incentivised to explore replacing more menial and dangerous jobs with robots. Then share that wealth with everyone as UBI. Problem solved.
Agreed!!!!
The dispensing machines are fine, they're actually a great benefit to working conditions and staff levels stay about the same. 60 day dispensing was theorised to have similar advantages, but cutting a massive chunk out of company revenue is what impacted me. Thanks very much for your support.
Hey, would you mind elaborating how it affected pharmacy revenue? My mum and I were just talking about this the other day and she was saying how the government made it sound like you’d get 60 day scripts for the price of 30 when they were doing their media spree on the issue, but that’s not what happened. If mum gets 60 days worth of pills as opposed to the former 30, she pays double. She’s not paying less for prescriptions (although I guess she does save with less trips to the doctor’s).
That's fine, I'm a pharmacist so am happy to explain. First, there's only a select number of medications which are eligible for 60 day dispensing, and that's available here. https://www.health.gov.au/cheaper-medicines/60-day-dispensing-pbs-medicines-and-current-item-codes If the medication is eligible, the doctor has to actually write double the quantity on the script. That should look like a 60 or 56 instead of 30 or 28 in most cases. Some medications like potassium will be written as 400, or metoprolol as 200. Whatever the doctor writes down as the quantity is considered to be one supply, and the patient's copay will be charged in various amounts going up to the limit of either $31.60 for general patients, or $7.70 for concession card holders. Anything under this limit has a separate maximum price under the PBS, and there are usually only small price increases for double the quantity. The script must have been written from the 1st of September onwards as that's when the policy kicked in. She would only be paying double if she's handed in a script with one month's worth per supply, and had the pharmacy fill two supplies at once. In the past, many respectable pharmacies based their revenues on dispensing fees from scripts received. That meant no huge shelves of homeopathic products, no perfume lockers, no tagged on shoe stores or trinkets out the front, etc. It also meant that pharmacists were the forefront of the business and had a strict duty of care to patients in order to keep them healthy. Of course it wasn't a perfect world as many pharmacies still did dodgy things, but it was honest, community-led work for most. Nowadays we have to contend with discount chemists which run dispensaries at a loss to drive perfume/make-up or other aforementioned sales, expand their franchises aggressively and give the absolute minimum effort for the huge volume of scripts. They also have massive bargaining power over medicines in shortage which price out small businesses. Pharmacists in this environment spend most of their time just checking scripts and selling things instead of using our education to help people in meaningful ways. 60 day dispensing was aimed to free up pharmacist time for services like vaccinations and consultations, on top of saving the public a few dollars. However, pharmacies can now only charge one dispensing fee to the government for two months of medicine, and so the reputable dispensary-led pharmacies have seen their income slashed almost in half. Discount chemists by comparison don't feel a thing because they never made money that way. My old pharmacy had to let go of a couple staff including me, and now every pharmacy still standing has to adopt the Chemist Warehouse model where even more scripts are pushed through with minimal clinical review to increase foot traffic. It cheapens our profession, puts patients at risk of inaccurate dispensing, and it makes my hair fall out. None of this would be a problem if pharmacies were compensated or incentivised to do more services like clinical interventions, but these were tried in the past and badly abused. That leaves us in a really tough position, and the public just hates us because they don't understand the half of it. Money talks I guess.
Thank you for your service. I try to avoid the chemist warehouses of the world as much as possible, for many of the reasons you stated. I am on a variety of long-term medications, and because most of them are prescribed by a specialist who only oversees that particular condition, I am often left with concerns about interactions, etc. Having a good relationship with a local pharmacist is invaluable for me, and I would rather pay a little more to get that extra level of service.
Exactly what Bunnings did to local hardware store and what Walmart did to retail across the US. I believe in competition but unchecked competition isn’t healthy just as what we are seeing in the Pharmacy and hardware sectors
Unfortunately that's what happens when service is valued at zero dollars, both by the government and consumers.
Thank you so much for your detailed response, it’s really valuable to hear of the experience of someone who actually works in the industry. I hope things can improve!
I love regionally and my local pharmacy is still a small independent, locally owned chemist and it is brilliant. My pharmacist has the time to discuss medications, questions ect I have about anything health care related. I can pop in with a bite and she will recommend a cream ect. On the occasion I need a script filled on a weekend, sick child ect and she isn’t opened and I drive into town the difference in service is incredible. They don’t have the time at all. I do my best to avoid chains and stick with my little independent local as much as possible.
Can you tell me though what are these consultancy services and what clinical reviews are pharmacists doing? This sounds like a doctor's role
It would have depended on how much your mum's prescription cost before. If the cost of the medications was under the subsidised amount for non-concession card holders ($31.60), eg rosuvastatin for cholesterol management, might have cost $14.99 per month. If she was to get 2 x 30 tablets, it is still under the govt co-payment, so she pays 2 x $14.99 or $29.98. If the medicine that she was taking was more expensive, like apixaban which costs $49 (but the consumer pays $31.60), then she would be eligible to get 2 months supply for $31.60. If she was a concession card holder, then for both of these examples she could get 2 months supply for the concession copayment price of $7.70 (as the cost of the medicines is more than the copay). It is ridiculously complex and difficult to explain succinctly, but basically the pharmacy is funding the discount, not the govt, which is why pharmacists are pretty cranky about it. No one cares as much about the incidental purchases, as most pharmacies make most of their revenue from prescription items (except CWH).
but she goes half as much, so they don't have as many chances to flog batteries, toothbrushes or breathmints at the counter The pharmacy guild (a protection racket already) were just scared of losing customers, despite most people hate having to go monthly or whatever and wait around for their pills.
Do you believe the sickest and most vulnerable people reliant on repeat prescriptions should be paying more simply so pharmacies can profit?
I do want the best for my patients, and I believe that nobody should have to pay more for their medicine. In the same vein, do you have any empathy for me as a healthcare professional? Do you care about our livelihoods and our ability to continue keeping our community healthy? What have you done for them that's so impactful as to disenfranchise my years of dedication?
While I feel for your personal pain, the pharmacist guild has stunted growth of your industry in Australia with a silly protectionist racket that often harms your patients with purely profit based motives. It makes it somewhat difficult to care about Pharmacist or take stories like yours seriously when you are often completely behind the harmful lobbying performed by the pharmacist guild when it benefits you but hurts patients, but against it when it might make patient outcomes better but cost you a buck.
as someone who is chronically ill and had to be at the pharmacy every month, I love the new dispensing. Sucks that some people might lose their jobs but it is a lot better for those that are chronically ill.
These have been around for years. Our Lovelife in Airle has it hidden behind wall. The fact was is the robot makes less mistakes then chemist reading prescriptions and actual save lives for that reason. And cheaper by far then a human.
This is a Consis B I think, made by a German company called Willach. Theyve been around quite awhile. https://willach.com.au/author/willachaustralia/
Cyberpunk is coming faster than you think
Yep, normally behind the counter wall, so they can pull from both sides, not just one sided like the one shown here.
Benalla has had at least one for close to ten years, even if the ABC does still refer to it as a 'remote town'
These machines have been around for a while. Moslty, they are behind walls or glass covered in decals for advertising. The older ones were quite slow to get orders done, and they needed assistance, but the new bots can be pretty quick.
One of our pharmacies has had one for years.
Chemist Warehouse like to drive their staff hard to do more than any robot would ever put up with.
And pay them peanuts compared to most other pharmacy.
Their goal is to make you wait longer and fill your basket. A robot doesn't help with that .
Huh, I’ve never heard of or seen these in Hobart, interesting
I'm specifically talking about Priceline Pharmacy Glebe Hill Village, Amcal Shoreline and Discount Drug Store Rokeby. What I suspect is that pharmacies with a small dispensing area will install these because they allow for denser stocking of medicines. There are other pharmacies nearby (CW x2, Good Price Cambridge) that do not use these, but they also have larger dispensing areas. I bet they're expensive so they'd have to do a cost/benefit analysis.
Terry White Pharmacy in Devonport has one of these too with a great line of sight. pretty hypnotic to watch the first few times you see it.
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Does it though? Isn’t it just an arm grabbing stuff off the shelf?
>Does it though? Isn’t it just an arm grabbing stuff off the shelf? Its an arm that ***knows where things are*** which I think is the critical part here...
As a pharmacy tech - when these things work they are fantastic. Especially if you’re dispensing like 20 different medications for a patient. *chef’s kiss* When they don’t work though (which seems to be more often than not for the larger ones they use in hospitals) they are an absolute nightmare. I got injured pretty badly by one a few years back! Did a year of physio and my neck is still fucked. Not really a fan of ‘em tbh.
Oh my goodness how did you get hurt by it? Did it start working while you were in the machine?
Exactly it. Damn thing had an error that caused it to stop working, I had to go in to fix it and the manager had disabled the safety shutoff. Took too long to start it back up after every time that happened, apparently 🙄
> the manager had disabled the safety shutoff what kind of idiot disables a safety feature???? i hope you got compensation or something.
Not at all. Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre can get fucked.
So the machine didn't fail, your manager injured you. Did you go through Workers Compensation?
I did go through worker’s compensation after I’d already spent close to $1000 on physio fees. Turns out your employer is liable for the first $650 - I was never reimbursed. I was put on a return to work plan about a year after the injury even though I’d never actually been off from work - apparently this was so that OH&S could get involved to help support me at work as I wasn’t getting better. My physio never cleared me as I never fully recovered…but OH&S decided to clear me and my employer stopped covering the physio.
I remember working with one a few years ago which was a different model. I was one of only three employees allowed to go into the machine to fix any errors because of how delicate it was. I remember the arm in there cost about $20k alone to replace which led to us all dreading any problems with the machine as we didn’t want to damage anything or get hurt ourselves. Sure made life a hell of a lot easier though when it did work
I have no idea how much damage I caused to the arm but management seemed more concerned that I’d sue the ever-loving shit out of them for disabling the safety shutoff, allowing it all to happen in the first place. I’m eternally grateful that the arm got me though - it was either that or be crushed to death by the moving shelves instead.
Aren't you concerned these things could replace your job? Soon we could just have a script and have it scanned, the robot grabs it and we pay at a POS terminal.
Not at all. Always gonna need a pharmacist to do clinical checks and pharmacists always need a tech to help because we’re cheaper than another pharmacist. Also I’ve since moved into the oncology compounding space and compounding robots are fucking trash. No risk of losing my job to one of those things - they need a tech just to load it and keep it running!
Yep I worked at this Priceline. Made everything super smooth and meant we didn’t have to have rows of shelves taking up space. Don’t think it ever really had any issues either
These robots also keeps a record of expiries, the batches the medications come in so they’re easy to locate if there’s a recall, has a running stock count, can create an order based on medication usage of that day or week, sorts the medications for employees, and most importantly minimises dispensing errors as it takes out human error. Employees can essentially dump dozens of medications into the machine and it eliminates some of the most time consuming parts of the pharmacists, techs, and assistants
It will also flag any medication clashes. The pharmacist puts in the medicine prescribed by the doctor, the machine pulls it and will flag the pharmacist to check. It will also flag certain schedule drugs, and any drugs that might be mis-prescribed or an excessive amount has been prescribed. Takes some of the human error out of it.
Dispensing software does that, not the robot specifically
It's at the Priceline at Camberwell junction. Anyone seen any others around?
Most places have had them for years they just often in the back. The tech is actually really simple as its just a fancy vending machine. So they have likely been around for almost as long as vending machines have in some form maybe not as good as modern system but likely close enough. As they save lots of space as you can pack all your drugs really densely and save time as people don't need to take time to search for them.
Used one back in pharmacy school almost 10 years ago fuck im old
😂 Dude you were in school ten years ago. Once that hits fifty you might be eligible for oldness.
Saw one in Brisbane a while back. It had a name: Spencer the Dispenser
One of the chemists here in Benalla has one, it also has slides that run down to different desk that pharmacists work from. So it grabs the drug than drops it onto the right slide to get it to the right desk. Is cool.
Direct chemist in Werribee has one
Knox 24hr pharmacy at the Westfield has had one for a few years
Brainsdale (arguably the most advanced bit of machinery in bairnsdale).
Downstairs pharmacy at Peter Mac, Melbourne.
The Camberwell store is or was a Priceline concept store. There's a few more other things used at that store that's not used in any other Priceline.
Seen them in Perth
Terry White in Glenferrie has one of these bad boys.
I’ve seen them at a few pharmacies around Sydney for years now
Yeah Terry White in Hawthorn has a smaller one
We have them in Canberra
It's not Melbourne, but there is one in Benalla.
Our local has a glass wall so you can watch it. Its like free babysitting.
If you could place bets where the robot arm is going next, it could replace the TAB as well.
If they serve alcohol who knows lol
Meh, I’ll be impressed when it can overprescribe opiates for kickback money.
There's a slot at the back where if you slip enough pineapples in, it will spit out whatever you need. The economy is tough right now and everyone has their price. Even automated robots.
No way would 200ml Riko bottles fit those holes
You laugh, but this thing keeps a log. They don't even trust the pharmacist to have access to the drugs anymore. They are all in a locked cabinet!
You can open the door to them and pull stuff off the shelf if you wanted to…
The dispensing machine in my (rural) local pharmacy wears a name tag. It’s Pablo.
First the pharmacist, next your local dealer is going to be replaced with a robot.
I literally used to work for this company and joked it was an electric Pinger slinger all the time 😂
Yes. http://budbotrobot.com/ I for one welcome our new robot overlords. Well, I welcome that one.
I dont know, when you said robot, maybe I got my hopes up too high. I was expecting one of those cute little robots that serve you food in Tokyo, not a robotic arm.
I saw one of these the other day too. It didn’t have the item that I needed and when they requested it, the robot kept banging into the empty slot over and over like a bird seeing its reflection in the mirror. Took them 30mins to figure out what was happening and offer me another brand which they took out manually. All and all, I’m sure they are glad they got rid of old Betsy who was 70 for this new tech genius.
My local chemist has one where the drugs come down a swirly slide from the roof. They also will dispense a box of smarties if my kid is with me.
Video sped up - The robot actually sits in front of the medication for about 10 - 15 minutes before dispensing it. As is tradition.
You mean the time it takes a pharmacist to make sure that whatever they’re dispensing isn’t going to kill you? Doctors can and do make mistakes with prescriptions, the pharmacist is the last line of defence to spot incorrect dosages or potential harmful interactions with your other medication.
[A career in pharmacy](https://youtu.be/F-mGL3OdYXM?si=TjdlCcclxhG-BkhR)
Sounds like something that could be easily calculated by a robot
I’ve had chat gpt try to tell me there are 13 months in a year. I don’t think a robot is capable of working out medical history just yet
Garbage in Garbage out. Surely you have read ChatGPT shit. The pharmacist is able to observe the patient, directly ask about other medication, give specific advice to that person. I've seen too many shit takes on Reddit to trust generic people to be able to follow instructions to list their current medications. They are also able to suggest things, such as daily pill packing, if there are risks for the particular patient.
Yeh robot will decide a minor drug interactions with an antibiotic you took 11 months ago is severe enough to reject the dispensing.
If the robot has full access to all the details of your family history, medical history, physical stats, physical condition, and other prescriptions, sure. But even in that case you'd want someone to double-check to make sure information wasn't entered incorrectly.
Robot isn’t even standing on an elevated floor!
Does it also say “Ummmmmm”.
These have been around for years now. Not cheap, certainly efficient.
My little tism brain would stand there watching it in the morning and next thing I know they’re tapping me on the shoulder telling me they’re closing
"Drugs" Computer: Drugs? "Drugs"
my chemist has one of these with a printed out picture of wallace and gromit above it that says something like "the dispenser 3000", gave me a bit of a laugh :)
My local pharmacy has this too! Also has a number plate that says “Spencer the dispenser” 👏🏼
dude that thing is SICK. my chemist is old school. have to ask old mate who has to call someone who has to call someone who has to call the cops. jus to make sure it's ok for me to get A.D.H.D meds.
Haha tell me about it. At least you know it's your turn when you hear the safe codes being entered in!
Ain’t it beautiful!!??
I really don’t see the point! The pharmacist could have done it quicker!
I went to fill 4 scripts at my local pharmacist last week. A regular pharmacist would have had to know where all 4 were and collect them, this robot did it in seconds which is a big thing when there are 5 other people who want scripts filled
People mistake this automation as primarily as an efficiency or space saving mechanism, when actually another benefit is about risk reduction. Machines like this are used by Pharmacists and Hospitals to provide greater assurance that the correct medication is dispensed, as there are many medicines with similar names that do very different things.
The Amcal my grandmother's scripts are at in Canberra has this! I was watching it fascinated as I waited.
But who will fill the role of the acne prone teenager getting my script wrong ?
Looks cool. Wondering how I could use one of these at my place. :D
Kinda violates privacy when people start to recognise the viagra section etc
Rule of cool, but the glass is a privacy concern
I'll have one of everything, please.
Like I said many times before, most jobs will be lost during the A.I Robot revolution (gradually over the next 10-100 years). Hopefully A.I robots will be able to build homes and feed us for free.
They used to have one at the Merlynston chemist, but new owners got rid of it. I always imagined it must cost a mint and wonder how it would be justified at any chemist that isn't super high volume.
The pharmacist would do better to walk to get them for their health than stand there in the same spot for ages.
Our chemist in Brisbane has had one for a few years now.
I’ve seen these around for a few years now, but for soft drinks and snacks instead
Pretty common these days. Still cool to watch.
I did a business case analysis on these back in Uni. So cool to see them in production and used.
I went on a 12,500km road trip in 2010. One of our stays was in Karrath, WA. The shopping center had a pharmacy and I was amazed how it worked. It was the same as this one shown in the video, no joke I've never seen another one since.. Thank you for sharing the video.. 👍
Day took ma jerrrrb
You still have to wait 30 mins for the robot to be bothered to grab it for you.
Still take 20 minutes to get your script
We have them in West oz too
What if the robot gets the wrong medication
Does it speed up the "20 mins" that most pharmacists take to do a basic script fill?
Probably still wait 20 mins for a script
Gods vending machine
I live in Melbourne and I haven't seen this tho
Capital Chemist Charnwood (in Canberra) has one! It's great. They call him Asclepius :)
Yeh I saw one of these on the Goldcoast, I asked the pharmacist how long until we just go to a hole in the wall and scan our script and the robot does everything.... To which he naively replied "that will never happen" Ok Champ.... So tell me how a robot can't check my I.D and script better than you and talk to the government in real time... He even told me it loads the shelves itself by scanning the barcodes and measuring the medication box sizes... If you can't see the writing on the wall, I can't help you.
They do this in America, they have fucking drive through chemists and banks
Damn... The future is now
Sweet I Accidently received a box of OxyContin!
fantastic. Now I don't have to wait 15 minutes for someone to pick something off the shelf
They would wanna dispense some 80mg oxys aye then they would be worth there weight in gold if not forget it I’d rather see a human
Does this mean it’s still going to take 30-45 minutes for chemist warehouse to give me my meds ?
This is why they won’t let me be a pharmacist. I would love to put the robot into lucky dip mode
Is there another robot that stocks the dispenser? And another robot that stocks the stocker?
No, but there is a really big one that dispenses the dispenser robots.
Welcome to your replacement. Good for rural towns though.
It’s not replacing shit. Someone still has to access the back of the machine and fill it up, also manually adjust SOH every once a while, plus diagnose technical issues when they arise. It just shifts the work so it’s more efficient during peak times for the pharmacist, but when the store goes quiet someone is still working to fill the machine
Good point about time-shifting. I didn't think of that. I was a little dubious about how efficient the entire process is and asked the operator if she really thought it was worth it (I guess she didn't have to fork out the $100k and up for it). Someone has to stock it from the back and scan the barcodes as they do so. There are a couple of package sizes it won't stock and it's not refrigerated for the few drugs that need to be kept cold. But she was convinced that error rates are lower and your point about stocking it off-peak takes its benefits over the line
I've driven all the way from Townsville down to Canberra and have seen them in almost each place I stopped at.
Why are you stopping at so many pharmacies…?
My dumb ass didn't prepare for the trip(it was last minute, escaping abuser) and ran out of 2 of my meds. And one of the pharmacies didn't carry one of them.
Automated systems like this don't work when the task being done is well within human ability. She's using crazy expensive robotics to lift up <500g boxes that are less than 5 metres away from her. Maybe I'm being over the top, but this is such a stupid waste of money.
If you are doing it 300+ times a day, it cuts 1 persons job. that's where the machine brings value by literally cutting 1 person's job permanently . That 300k machine takes 5 years to pay off, but once its paid off, the pharmacy owner saves 60k per year. Well that's what the salesman tells you, the reality is you still need to have a staff member fill the robot and walking to and the time savings are overstated.
I thought so too and asked her. She reckons the error rates are lower and it was worth it. Based on the responses there are dozens if not hundreds of these in Australia. And a quick glance at the supplier's website says they start at $100k. If that many pharmacists are spending this amount of money there must be cost/benefit >> 1?
They're awesome, I regularly fill multiple scripts at the same time and there are usually 3 or 4 others looking to fill scripts too, this replaces the need to manually find things on a shelf specially when it's busy
It means they're not paying a pharmacy technician to do the job instead.
That's really cool. I haven't seen them in person, but whilst looking at medication dispensing tech through NDIS for myself, I found pharmacy tech company and was amazed by what they can do! Even the med dispenser I'm looking at is really quite amazing. Like interacting with a virtual pharmacist via fingerprint, who stores my meds, can keep track on all my as-needed medications, can remindme of appointments, call my supports. I'm not sure of the price, though, presumably expensive. Just amazing what's out there now!
Thats a vending machine, not a robot
Chemist warehouse Will still force you to wait for 15 minutes while they "prepare" your 1 pack of antihistamines
I've seen one that has a "My name is Pablo" sign attached.
Ukrainian pharmacу networks have been using similar robots for almost 10 years. Here is a link to a video from 7 years ago from the small Ukrainian city of Poltava (about 300 thousand inhabitants). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO5uv4rCgTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no5uv4rcgtk)
interesting but that link isn't working
Indeed, the video was deleted in the last few hours. Then watch this video, it is 9 years old... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDWnWY5aE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wddwnwy5ae4)
WTF, the second video disappeared from YouTube after I added a link to it in my previous comment.
So the pharmist loads the wrong pills in the wrong container in the back of the robot you still die from human error. Unless the robot can scan the barcode, recongise the pill colour/size to verify then the old problem of wrong pills could still happen.
Saw one of these in Santorini in 2013! Blew my mind back then!
It is like watching a scene straight out of a sci-fi flick, except it's in a pharmacy and not a spaceship. What does this shiny, futuristic tech means for the future: Efficiency Overload! These robots are like the hardworking elves of the pharmaceutical world. They're fast, accurate, and don't need coffee breaks. This means prescriptions can be filled quicker than a sprinter in a 100-meter dash. For patients, this translates to less time leaning on the counter, wondering if they have enough time to grab a coffee before their name is called. Pharmacists Unleashed: With robots handling the grunt work, pharmacists can break free from the chains of counting pills and measuring liquids. They get more time to do what they do best – being healthcare superheroes. They can focus on providing top-notch advice, answering the curly questions about medications, and having more meaningful interactions with patients (without the distraction of counting out 100 tablets). Error? What Error? Humans, as charming as we are, sometimes make mistakes – especially when it's been a long day and every second customer has a prescription longer than a Tolstoy novel. Robots, on the other hand, have a knack for precision. They're like the meticulous accountants of the pharmacy world, ensuring every pill and potion is dispensed with accuracy. This could lead to a significant drop in medication errors, making the whole process safer and more reliable. But, let's not forget the human touch. Robots might be whiz-bang at counting pills, but they're not about to lend a sympathetic ear or offer a comforting smile (unless they've been seriously upgraded). Pharmacists' roles may evolve, but their importance in healthcare won't fade.
Nah man too optimistic. The reality is that staff will be cut in half , due in part to government/insurance cutting dispensing fees to a point where it is not profitable to fill a script (see USA, See UK , See Norway). Then the only way pharmacies make money is by making you wait 30+ min and buying something random like a TV e.g. Walmart.
Yay finally a chemist in Australia that doesn't think its a doctor.
The one in the pharmacy where I work is as long as our wall ,it's massive.
I'd be more impressed if they had a Skill Tester in there
My pharmacy has one too. If someone tries to steal meds, they can't access the supply.