Robotic Process Automation – A tool to aid Clinical Practice

Digital Pioneer Fellow Stephanie Lurshay is Senior Pharmacist for Electronic Medicines, Prescribing and Administration (EPMA) and Clinical Informatics at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals (RBHH). Her role is to manage and continually improve the organisation’s digital systems and processes to help patients to obtain the medicines they need in a safe and effective manner. With a clinical specialism in critical care, the heart of her work in digital pharmacy is driven by the same key principles as when providing pharmaceutical care to patients – to safely provide the right medicine, to the right patient and at the right time. 

My introduction to automation

I’ve always been excited and interested by new technology, and particularly how I can harness the potential to benefit patients and colleagues. Pre-pandemic, I started working with Microsoft’s low-code platform for automation – PowerAutomate.

I used PowerAutomate to create an electronic ordering process for pharmacists to order medications for patients from critical care areas – previously all ordering was completed on paper and requests were hand delivered to the dispensary. Often pharmacists would leave the ward and move away from their valuable clinical work to deliver urgent medication requests. An automated ordering process was particularly appreciated during the peaks of the pandemic where movement between COVID ‘red zones’ was restricted, and staff worked in full PPE.