Hi-res imaging technology enables Rx verification

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ Pharmacy and Technology Conference in Boston will feature a multitude of suppliers showcasing everything from new drugs and devices to online services and pharmacy automation equipment. Among those suppliers is Innovation, which will display its latest machine for automating the counting and processing of medications, after having showed it at Cardinal Health’s Retail Business Conference in Las Vegas last month.


Innovation describes the PharmAssist OPTIx — part of its broader PharmAssist product line of pharmacy automation equipment — as countertop optical counting and imaging technology that is a “great fit” for any type of pharmacy, counting medicines in up to 200 milliseconds with an accuracy rate of 99.9%. “OPTIx combines tremendous counting speed and accuracy with high-resolution imaging and quality checks to enable pharmacies to increase throughput, provide the highest level of patient safety and perform remote prescription verification,” Innovation EVP global business development Doyle Jensen told Drug Store News. “Using OPTIx, pharmacies can employ lower-paid pharmacy techs to fill prescriptions, which frees up their pharmacists to perform other tasks and engage customers. After filling, techs can facilitate remote verification by using OPTIx to take a high-resolution image of each prescription’s vial contents and vial label.”


The device works by taking a high-resolution image of each prescription’s vial contents and label, and displaying them on a designated pharmacist’s workstation, thus enabling remote prescription verification — onsite or offsite — through comparison with images in a drug database.