Automatic Medicine Dispenser

Abstract

This article was conducted to (1) propose a pilot study of an automatic medicine dispenser for Phatthana Nikhom Hospital, Lopburi Province, (2) evaluate the efficiency of refilling/dispensing medicines and managing the medicine inventory through the system, and 3) apply Internet of Things (IoT) technology and web applications to support public health services to improve the quality of life of the population.  This research is developmental research, composed of 2 parts: the first part was the development of the prototype of the automatic medicine dispenser system and the web application to manage the database using both hardware and software tools, including various sensor devices, JavaScript programming languages, and MySQL database system. The second part evaluated the system’s performance by testing with eight pharmacists and staff.  The analysis results were as follows: 1. This system prototype can work to refill/dispense medicines automatically instead of pharmacists and staff, and 2. The system is 100% accurate and fast enough to support the use of pharmacy staff. 3. This prototype was developed with IoT technology and web applications, and can support public health services for the population.  This research group believes that this prototype system could be applied and was a good guideline to reduce the service problems in hospital, in particularly the refilling/dispensing service of the drug warehouse, to be accurate, reduce the problem of incorrect drug dispensing in the past, and could be further developed to be applied with other service works in the hospital very well.