Pyxis

Have you ever watched a show like Nurse Jackie?  If so, you probably noticed that after the pharmacist got fired, they replaced him with a machine that dispenses individual unit dose medications to the nurses.  At HIPPE, this machine is called a ‘Pyxis,’ but it may have other names at other hospitals depending on the company who makes it.  In all actuality, a Pyxis cannot replace a pharmacist!  There are other machines that hospitals use to decrease the amount of pharmacy staff, but these machines are not a Pyxis nor would they be able to replace all pharmacists. 

            If you have never worked in a hospital, you probably have no idea what a Pyxis does even though you have seen it in a television show.  A Pyxis enables nurses to have easy access to medications in a unit dose form for their patients.  It may sound as if the pharmacist is obsolete if their not giving the medication to the nurses, but they’re not! The Pyxis actually enables pharmacist to primarily be used for their clinical knowledge in medications.  The Pyxis will NOT let a nurse take a medication out if a pharmacist has not approved the use of it for that SPECIFIC patient.  If the pharmacist finds something wrong with the doctors’ prescription or the nurses’ refill order, they can reject the order.   This is where the pharmacist gets to use all their schooling.  Previously when a doctor or nurse called in a medication, the pharmacist would have to rush to verify that the medication itself was correct, check its specific use for the patient, and then either deliver it directly to the nurse/patient or find someone to do it for them.  With the Pyxis, technicians have already brought commonly used medications that the pharmacists have already verified to the different floors.  So now when a medication is called in, all the pharmacist has to do is make sure its clinical use is the most optimum for the patient.

("Pharmacy automation," 2005)

            This week I had one of the pharmacy staff members introduce me to the Pyxis.  I asked how they decided which medications to stock in the Pyxis would be the best choice, and I received a great answer!  Although the pharmacy can easily create statistics to see which medications are used the most based on their past history, the Pyxis itself creates charts/graphs to show which medications are specifically used at each station in the hospital (since each section specializes in different segments of health).  The women in charge informed me that their goal is to have roughly 90% of all medications used at each station to be available in the Pyxis at any given time. 

            If you ever walk through a hospital and see a funky looking grey cabinet with a computer monitor on top of it, STOP and take a good look at it!  Think about how large a pharmacy must be to store ALL medications needed for ALL patients to try to minimize out of stock complications.  Now realize that the small area the Pyxis is taking up is storing roughly 90% of the medication variety that patients use on that floor.

I am personally amazed at what this technology does, but there is just too much to say considering the fact that I have never had access to it myself.  To learn more on the Pyxis, feel free to visit anyone of the links below!

RxAutomation

Carefusion

Pyxis training power point

Pictures from:

Pharmacy automation. (2005, November 06). Retrieved from

        http://www.uihealthcare.com/pharmacy/RxAutomation.html