Nurses' perceptions of the reliability of an automated medication dispensing system

Automated medication dispensing systems (AMDS) technology is increasingly b eing implemented in health care facilities to reduce the risk of medication errors. However, the case study evidence of their effectiveness has so far been mixed. It has been suggested that the attitudes of nursing staff towa rd AMDS can be an important factor in influencing whether or not the techno logy will be successfully implemented. Nurses' attitudes toward AMDS were e xamined at Riverview Health Centre, a long-term care facility where the Med itrol automated dispensing system had been installed the previous year. It was found that nurses were generally distrustful of AMDS and skeptical that it had reduced medication errors. A number of technological, organizationa l, and social factors has been put forward to explain this distrust. In add ition, the efforts of hospital administrators to raise nurses' confidence i n the system's reliability were also delineated.