STAFF ATTITUDES ABOUT THE USE OF ROBOTS IN PHARMACY BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION OF A ROBOTIC DISPENSING SYSTEM

Hospital pharmacy staff members at a Midwestern university medical cen ter were surveyed to determine their attitudes about the use of robots in pharmacy dispensing before a robotic system was implemented. A que stionnaire seeking attitudes about the use of robots in pharmacy was d istributed to 147 pharmacy staff (pharmacy managers, pharmacist practi tioners, pharmacotherapists, pharmacy residents and fellows, pharmacy technicians, and salaried pharmacy students). Attitudinal items were s cored on a 5-point scale ranging from very favorable to very unfavorab le. The response rate was 75%. Overall, staff expressed favorable atti tudes in terms of job security, professional impact, and general robot ics orientation. Pharmacy managers and pharmacotherapists were the mos t likely to report feeling secure about their jobs; pharmacy technicia ns and salaried pharmacy students were slightly less positive. Favorab le attitudes about the professional impact of the robotic system were demonstrated by all groups except pharmacist practitioners and pharmac y technicians. Attitudes about management issues were unfavorable; pha rmacist practitioners demonstrated the least favorable attitudes. In g eneral, responses to semantic-differential statements reflected favora ble attitudes; where there were differences, pharmacy technicians show ed the least positive and pharmacy managers the most positive attitude s. Respondents reported that pharmacist practitioners would be most po sitively affected and pharmacy technicians most negatively affected by robotic dispensing. Almost half of the respondents who provided gener al comments indicated that they needed more information about the use of robots. Pharmacy staff had generally favorable altitudes about the use of robots in pharmacy.