Walgreens Turns to Prescription-Filling Robots to Free Up Pharmacists

Chain says automated drug-filling centers cut pharmacist workloads by 25% and ease pressure on understaffed stores

By Sharon Terlep of The WSJ. 

There are different types of unemployment (seasonal, frictional, structural and cyclical).

Structural-unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills of job seekers and the requirements of available jobs.

One example of this is when you are replaced by a machine. Another example is when there is a fall in demand for your product, so you get laid off, like with typewriters since people now use computers. A third example is geographical, when the jobs are not in your region of the country.

But sometimes machines or robots help the workers.

Excerpts: 

"Walgreens WBA 2.55%increase; green up pointing triangle Boots Alliance Inc. is turning to robots to ease workloads at drugstores as it grapples with a nationwide shortage of pharmacists and pharmacist technicians. 

The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain is setting up a network of automated, centralized drug-filling centers that could fill a city block. Rows of yellow robotic arms bend and rotate as they sort and bottle multicolored pills, sending them down conveyor belts. The company says the setup cuts pharmacist workloads by at least 25% and will save Walgreens more than $1 billion a year.

The ultimate goal: give pharmacists more time to provide medical services such as vaccinations, patient outreach and prescribing of some medications."

"The centers employ anywhere from dozens to hundreds of workers, who oversee the process or handle prescriptions for medications that can’t be filled by robot, such as inhalers used to treat asthma.

Prescriptions that are time-sensitive or for controlled substances are still filled by pharmacists in stores. Those filled at the automated centers are delivered to stores by AmerisourceBergen Corp.’s wholesale distribution unit alongside shipments of medications that are sorted and filled in stores. 

More drugstores, including smaller chains and independent pharmacies, are looking to automate and centralize drug fulfillment"

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