“Working alongside a sort of robot”

Judith Bijzitter, Control and production, SPITS Oosterwolde

Spits processes some 100,000 medicine dosage bags a day. That means we check about 2 million bags a month. Spits works mainly for pharmacists supplying hospitals and care homes; organisations that dispense large amounts of medicine on a daily basis. It’s essential that the right combination and quantity of medicine is dispensed as the smallest error can of course have huge consequences for a patient.

Judith Bijzitter is responsible for detecting errors in the quality, quantity and combination of the dispensed medicines. “The accuracy of my work has increased considerably thanks to the Inspector,” she declares. The medicine is first checked by the Inspector, so the work of the control checker is less intensive. Previously, the dosage bags were checked by hand, but as the day progressed concentration levels would drop, so increasing the chances of human error.

The Inspector takes a photo of the front and back of each dosage bag, and checks the medicine according to several important criteria, namely colour, size, shape, number and combination. This ensures the dosage bags are accurately checked – consistently. The error margin is now much smaller and the medication control process a lot easier and less stressful.  As soon as the Inspector ascertains an error, or possible error, the control checker carries out a manual double check.