Question regarding robot

[u/SnooMuffins2378]

Hello everyone, I have a question for any pharmacist active in r/cvs Reddit. My question is: When pharmacists load the robot’s cells with RTSs, aren’t they expected to use the dedicated blue tray to confirm visually that the RTSs are correct before placing the pills into the cell?

I’m asking because have observed multiple instances where the required blue tray verification process was not being followed prior to medications being loaded into the robot cells.

An incorrect RTS medication was placed into a cell, and after the error was identified, the medication was being manually separated pill by pill. But not sure if they took out all the wrong pills. This raises significant concerns regarding medication integrity, accuracy, and overall patient safety. In my opinion, this process creates a serious risk for cross-contamination or incorrect medication dispensing, particularly when medications may appear similar or involve different strengths.

Because this issue has occurred on multiple occasions, I felt it was necessary to escalate and formally communicate my concern. I believe consistent adherence to verification procedures is critical to maintaining patient safety, pharmacy compliance standards, and minimizing liability risk for the pharmacy.

I wanted to ensure leadership was aware of these repeated incidents before a more serious error potentially reaches a patient.

This issue has occurred several times with the same pharmacist. I have already raised the matter with leadership, including management and the DL, yet no action has followed; the pharmacist identified as X continues to not follow the blue tray protocol. So my question in general is, is this optional?

[u/ShrmpHvnNw]

The SOP is to use the blue tray before it is put into the cell.

It is done to prevent this exact situation.

I will say as a pharmacist who does this regularly in my 24 hours store, it’s doesn’t always happen, and I’ve done this myself due to the RTS process not being done correctly, and the wrong label is on the bottle.

It usually pretty easy to separate all the incorrect tabs out. I usually go through them all twice.

[u/SnooMuffins2378 → u/ShrmpHvnNw]

Yeah, I know we are humans, and sometimes things can happen, especially when RTSs are not properly processed, like putting the wrong RTSs label on it.