Apoteca Community 7th Edition

Safe chemotherapy: automation and control for human care. New guidelines for tomorrow’s Health.
 
On June 18-19, 2015 we hosted the seventh meeting of Apoteca Community, the Italian network of Apoteca Chemo users.
 
The Community has stressed the role of robotics in ensuring the highest quality standards for anti-cancer preparations: technology introduces indeed intermediate checks, traceability and performance measurements that avoid any error in the chemotherapy compounding process.
 
In a message addressed to the Community, Melissa McDiarmid, Professor in Occupational & Environmental Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center and member of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Occupational Health, encouraged the group to “consider opportunities where both patient safety and worker safety can be achieved, perhaps with the same intervention, be that a technology change or a process or work practice update”.
 
Over 50 professionals from leading Italian Cancer Center that adopted Apoteca system for chemotherapy compounding developed by Loccioni Group took part in the two-day meeting. Among them: Ospedali Riuniti of Ancona, IRCCS IRST of Meldola, European Institute of Oncology, Hospital of Perugia, IRCCS Istituto Candiolo.
 
Apoteca Community has kicked-off a discussion about the new standards of pharmacy practice: Italy has indeed explored in-depth the impact of automation in the chemotherapy production, workflow and economic aspects that affect quality and safety.
 
Quite an achievement for a health model that, in times of spending review, seems to be suffering an identity crisis, torn between cuts and innovation.[:]