GenScripts Pharmacy Expedites Prescription Filling with Eyecon® Tabletop Automation Solution
Livonia, MI—August 3, 2011—GenScripts Pharmacy, a pharmacy catered exclusively to self-pay patients in Tulsa, Oklahoma, increases prescription filling speed and enhances customer service with the Eyecon® tabletop automation solution by Avery Weigh-Tronix. With its Visual Counting System™, the Eyecon provides users with an efficient, high-accuracy prescription validation, counting and filling solution. The system is designed to improve not only filling accuracy, but also customer safety and inventory management—allowing pharmacy technicians to better handle challenging workloads while maintaining a firm focus on customer service.
“Our business picked up a lot while we were still hand-counting all prescriptions,” said Tasha Towler, pharmacy technician for GenScripts Pharmacy. “Repeatedly counting 400 tablets from a 1000-count bottle by hand can be very time-consuming. With the Eyecon system’s high accuracy and speed, we can serve more customers faster,” Towler noted.
The Eyecon system ensures reliable results by utilizing a camera mounted above the counting tray that captures photographs of the pills as the user pours them from a stock bottle. Five images are captured each second, and Eyecon updates the pill count with each image taken. This results in an automated solution capable of counting poured pills within 200 ms, with a field-tested accuracy of nearly 100 percent. The system also identifies tablet fragments and foreign materials on the counting tray, further assuring quality control.
“While some tabletop automation solutions count tablets based solely on weight, Eyecon takes a visual assessment of the filling process,” said Bob McFarlane, Eyecon account manager at Avery Weigh-Tronix. “Weight can be influenced by something as subtle as an atmospheric change, hindering the dependability of such a process. The Eyecon’s Visual Counting System enables it to count pills with the utmost accuracy, as well as distinguish among pills varying in shape and size.”
In utilizing the Eyecon’s count mode for prescription filling, GenScripts has significantly simplified its procedures. In this mode, the user scans a stock bottle using Eyecon’s barcode scanner, so that the name of the medication is displayed, along with a reference image, on the system’s operator display. This allows for visual confirmation that the product dispensed coincides with the product label on the stock bottle.
“After five years of hand-counting prescriptions, the Eyecon system makes a big difference,” Towler said. “Now I’d feel lost without it.”
To read the full story, visit www.eyeconvpc.com. Learn more about GenScripts Pharmacy at www.genscripts.com.
Avery Weigh-Tronix is a pioneer in the design and manufacture of innovative precision electronic weighing devices and control systems. GSE, a member of the Avery Weigh-Tronix Group, designs and manufactures countertop automation for pill counting and Rx validation in retail pharmacy operations, including the machine vision-based Eyecon® system. For further information, visit http://www.eyeconvpc.com. Phone: (866) 260-6540. Fax: (313) 253-1301. Email: Eyecon@awtxglobal.com.