Automated medication dispensing: the ATC 212 system.

Innovative technology is currently being designed and produced that will change the way hospital pharmacy is practiced in the future. Automated technology is becoming a powerful component of health care as human resources become scarce. The report describes a technology currently in use at a large general acute care hospital. This new automated system assists the pharmacy department by packaging and dispensing medications to be used in the centralized, computer supported cart-filling process. The ATC 212 System (Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Deerfield, IL) was reviewed and selected as a tool to enhance pharmacy operations. The system has made a positive impact on the unit dose centralized cart-fill operations. A reduction of one full-time technician, a reallocation of pharmacists' time and an increase in productivity and operational flexibility has been realized as a result of the ATC 212 system implementation.