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Show N10 20022003 NEWS OPENINGS THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE Drug Dispensing Machine Speeds Up Wait at U Pharmacy iVeiy .jut I I Thu IIIU ni Uf I - (i T FRED THALLER Chronicle News Writer , ( - t There's a new "employee" at the U Hospital's outpatient pharmacy. It is ' ; f six feet tall, eight feet long and two feet wide. Its official name is SriptPro 200, but if it could talk, a nickname might 82 Fri -- be more appropriate. The new employee is a robot that was installed in and it's been saving a lot of money and tune for the pharmacy. Three of the U's community clinic pharmacies have been testing the $200,000 robots over the past year or two and have found them to be real assets. According to Russ Ragsdale, pharmacist and supervisor, this is the fourth robot installed in the U's system of hospitals and clinics. He said the robot saves numerous trips to the shelves by personnel, it frees up the pharmacists' and technicians' time to do other things, it lets the staff know when it is running low on certain drugs, and it verifies that the selected drugs are the correct drugs going into patients' prescription vials. The robot can handle several differ- drug-dispensin- 7 g f mid-Apr- il Sat 83 J - j Fri - A 89 C Sat 810 , W j? '' c - i The University Hospital's new robotic drug dispenser allows Russ Ragsdale, the pharmacy manager, to fill prescriptions faster and more accurately. ent sizes of vials, automatically choos- maintain the robot, keep its cells filled with the correct drugs and punch in the correct prescriptions, so it won't make humans obsolete in the pharmacy business anytime soon. Jim Jorgenson, director of pharmacy services for the College of Pharmacy, said the robot increases the flow at the ing the correct one based on the physical characteristics of pills in the prescription, "It's never crashed, it never gets sick, it doesn't go on vacation and it's a big plus in quality assurance," Ragsdale said. "But the best thing about it is that it never makes mistakes." He says people are still required to see ROBOT, page N22 L. Tue813 f 1 Wed c 814 c Thu 815 Fri 81 6 Thu c Vp I 0 4I since discovering my U Card is a FREE Transit Pass, all I think about r t( ll li 822 c IPS ?lJiii) Lia:- - 'U? T,,l 1 Sun 91 . Between the road construction, fighting for parking spaces, and the cost, driving to campus can involve a different drama every day. Simplify your personal plot line end take transit to carpus. It's FREE with your current U Card (which leads a double life as a transit pass on UTA buses and TRAX trains) end it's so easy. Plus, you may actually get to class on time. Vouldn't that be dramatic? Questions? Go to www.parking.utah.edu. For route information, hit www.rideuta.com. Then jump cn board. nn t THE To, UNIVmiTY OF UTAH From, On Campus M0tl . ! |