Recently, some high-profile, controversial comments were made regarding automated dispensing technology and the role of community pharmacists.

On the surface, it may seem that comparing an automated machine with a real, live human is just about efficiency. But these comments are just one piece of a much larger conversation about how we can increase accuracy and reduce medication errors through the adoption of empowering technology and thus allow pharmacists to do all the great things we can do to improve patient care.

The reality is that, as all pharmacists know, machines are only as efficient and accurate as the humans who program and use them. As our colleagues at the National Community Pharmacists Association point out, there are many things pharmacists can do, and are doing, that a machine simply cannot. While nearly all pharmacies in America use Certified Pharmacy Technicians to hand prescription medications to patients, others use mail carriers. All pharmacies use pharmacists—and only pharmacists—to provide patient counseling, and often to each others’ patients.

Community pharmacy plays an important role in patient care. Pharmacists are more than just medication dispensers, or as aptly put by a major chain CEO in Monday's Wall Street Journal, we’re about more than pills in a bottle—we’re about improved patient outcomes:

• We counsel patients on drug interactions, side effects, safety, and efficacy of the medications they take.
• We advise patients on how to use OTC medications and supplements safely and effectively, often in conjunction with prescriptions.
• We hold conversations with patients on why they have to take a medication as directed and why the medication is important.
• We evaluate medication histories and catch potentially serious dosing and interaction problems.
• We counsel on managing chronic conditions.
• We immunize.
• We work with the patient’s physicians to clarify, adjust, and advise regarding therapy, and to help problem solve when patients can’t afford their medications.

Community pharmacies are handling dramatically increased volumes by adopting enhanced technology, employing and training highly qualified technicians, and adopting systems to identify opportunities for assisting prescribers in recognizing opportunities to optimize therapy. In short, there’s more than one pharmacy in America that is focused on accurate dispensing and making difficult calls to prescribers.

At APhA, we are here to work for you by doing the following:

• Developing business models for patient care that promote collaboration between payers who have an interest in improving care and lowering all costs, not just medication costs, and the pharmacists who can help achieve those goals
• Supporting community pharmacy residency sites that often serve as incubators for innovative practices
• Publishing the research and stories of innovative practitioners so others can learn and adopt new strategies for improved safety and outcomes
• Promoting the essential role of the pharmacist to the public, so that the cognitive and special services you provide are fully known to the patients who walk into your pharmacy
• Advocating for the pharmacist among regulatory and legislative bodies to make sure your work is recognized in health care bills and with regulatory bodies including CMS and FDA
• Providing you with continuing education opportunities, so that you may continue to provide new and innovative services to your patients as our industry changes
• Working with the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board to make sure that U.S. pharmacy technicians are highly trained and qualified

The conversation about how to decrease medication errors is an important one that must continue. Automation technology is an important tool that can increase accuracy and keep patients safer. However, it’s just an adjunct, not a substitute, for the judgment, training, and care of patients’ most accessible health care provider: their pharmacist.