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After the introduction of the health insurance system solely operated by the Korean Government in 1989, most patients tend to seek for the major medical center instead of a small clinic setting. Therefore, a waiting time for seeing the physician or receiving medication in major hospitals has been dramatically increasing. In an attempt to reduce the medication waiting time as much as possible, the automation system has been put into a practice in the outpatient pharmacy at Samsung Medical Center since November of 1994. The automation system consisted of one host computer, two medication envelop printing machines, three automatic tablet counters, seven barcode readers, and five drug stockers along with a set of conveyor belt line. Once the host computer receives a patient´s information prescription, envelops, and labels are printed automatically with a specific patient´s number. At the same time, abox with the patient´s number passes along the conveyor belt stopping at each unit where already dispensed medication in the drug stocket is dropped into the box. After pharmacists check the box completely filled according to the prescription, the box moves to a final stop where the patient´s number is scanned by a barcode reader and is finally displayed on the screen ready to be picked up. The system was able to turn the whole dispensing process into a continuous parallel scheme in which filling medication at each dispensing unit occurs simultaneously. Except for filling and inspecting medication, every part of the process has been automated. As a result, the medication waiting time was shortened with decreased filling time, and improved quality of patient care services such as counseling and easier access to statistical data were observed. However, the automation system did not lead to a significant reduction in the number of pharmacists working in the out patient pharmacy.
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