What are the tools to ensure safe distribution of medicines?

Medicines are not commodities. Their purpose is to treat the sick. But in some cases, they can also lead to death. For this reason, it is important to put in place procedures to control the preparation and distribution of medicines.

As you may have read in a previous article on our blog, we explained that at the beginning of the chain of the medication circuit in EHPAD, we find the prescription which is the result of a meeting between the resident and his doctor. Then, this prescription is communicated to EHPAD, which immediately transmits it to the pharmacist of its choice.

Once selected, the pharmacy prepares and sends the medication. At the end of this chain, it is the nurse who prepares the distribution of the medicines to the residents.

For several years now, the IGAS (General Inspectorate of Social Affairs) has been recommending that an agreement be put in place between EHPADs and community pharmacists. The problem today lies with the EHPAD, which can choose the pharmacy of its choice, even if the resident wants a specific pharmacist.

The EHPAD is therefore free to manage the organisation of its medication circuit.

At present, there are several methods of managing medicines. There are three main methods:

• Traditional method: the preparation of medication is carried out by the nurses using weekly pill boxes. It is also possible that a town pharmacist comes to the hospital each week with pill boxes.
• Blister pack method: This is a pillbox for one month. In this pillbox, each blister pack is identified by labels containing the room number, the date of release, the name of the medicine).
• Sachet method: this method is very recent, it appeared with the introduction of preparation robots which deliver a roll of doses to be administered for a prescription.

Companies such as mulTiroir medical aim to improve the safety of the medication circuit by offering solutions appropriate to the needs of its customers. MulTiroir has made the medication circuit its great speciality. This is why this company can offer traditional drug storage and distribution solutions: storage cabinets, 600×400 pillboxes, etc., as well as more complete, secure solutions such as the PDA Hebdo, which allows the preparation and distribution of drugs to be monitored.

What is interesting about the solution put forward by mulTiroir is that it adapts to existing traditional tools and, more importantly, it does not change the work habits of the care workers.