Mechanical pharmacies made by Pleasanton company help patients in remote locations
By Lea Blevins
MEDIANEWS STAFF
PLEASANTON - Imagine living in a place with no drug store for miles around but still being able to obtain prescription drugs and consult face to face with a pharmacist.
PickPoint Corp., based in Pleasanton, is making that possible. And co-founder Richard Lee promises that it's only just begun to revolutionize the pharmacy world.
Lee is a resident of Volcano, about 60 miles east of Sacramento, but co-founders Kevin Delaney and Peter Swidzinski are from the Tri-Valley. Lee works about three days a week in the Pleasanton office.
Lee has a background in factory automation and was interested in working on packaging for drugs when the PickPoint idea began.
The products are designed to store and dispense prepackaged medications of various types that will increase pharmacy efficiency and provide access to drugs for people in remote locations.
PickPoint's main product resembles a vending machine but is filled with bottles and pill packs instead of candy bars and chips -- and it has bulletproof glass.
The security features allow the machines to be placed in distant locations, such as Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where they may be situated in a hut out in the middle of nowhere.
Doctors and other care providers use PickPoint's computer technology system to request a prescription from a pharmacist in Anchorage, who can speak to the providers via video cameras in real time. The computer program also allows for close-up measuring and viewing of pills to ensure that the prescription is correct.
"This is truly the next generation," Lee said.
In its few years of business, PickPoint has already attracted a wide customer base.
The military uses PickPoint's machines to run what is called a "telepharmacy" for its troops serving in remote locations, including ships.
The machines are installed in more than 125 U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and public health service locations around the world.
The Alaska Native Medical Center, which uses PickPoint's technology, established the Southcentral Foundation Telepharmacy Program, based in Anchorage, with more than 36,000 patients in a 2,000-mile area.
"You can be anywhere, and we can give you pharmacy assistance and control," Lee said.
In addition to setting up machines in remote sites, PickPoint sells them to hospitals and pharmacies to keep behind the counter. The machines are the same except for the front door, which doesn't include bulletproof glass and allows pharmacy personnel to reach right in and grab the filled prescription.
The pharmacy inside Safeway near the Blackhawk community in Danville features PickPoint's machines behind the counter.
The pharmacy has the vending-machine-style model as well as a set of drawers that light up to direct pharmacists to the location of a prescription.
The machines allow pharmacy staff to save time by reallocating what work they do and when, said pharmacy manager David Flower.
Although pharmacists still have to fill individual bottles of pills and load the machine, the process is speeded up by filling multiple bottles at once instead of filling them as each prescription comes in.
"The best advantage of this thing is when we do have downtime, we're using it up," Flower said.
Lee said PickPoint is currently working on other technology to improve the pharmacy world, but it won't be ready for a few months. He said people can begin to imagine getting their prescriptions filled in seconds rather than what now is often an hour's wait.
"The technology we have coming is so dramatic," Lee said. "This is stuff that people have never seen or heard of."
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