Handing out and taking wrong medicines is a thing of the past thanks to IRIS from high-tech company ZIUZ. The compact machine automatically checks bags with tablets and capsules for correctness. Hospital nurses no longer have to sort medicines or pay attention to the right combinations. The process of creating and distributing medicines is fully digitally controlled. Hospital pharmacist Dick Bloemhof from Nij Smellinge in Drachten has co-developed IRIS and is enthusiastic. "Now we are even better able to give patients their medication quickly, reliably and at the right time." 

It is only recently that pharmacy assistants spent a lot of time every day selecting, combining and packaging pills correctly. IRIS is such a development that hospital pharmacist Dick Bloemhof is very enthusiastic about. In fact, he contributed to the development for high-tech company ZIUZ from Gorredijk. “Thanks to IRIS, our attention is shifting from sorting medicines and filling boxes to advice and quality control. That is exactly what our profession should be about.”

IRIS

IRIS is a compact device with very reliable modern technology to check the contents of medicine bags quickly and safely. A medicine pouch issued by IRIS contains just the right medication and amount that a patient should take at any given time. Bert Garlich, Businessline Manager Medical at ZiuZ in Gorredijk, now knows from experience that hospitals with many different and varying medications every day have great advantages in terms of convenience and safety with medicine bags. ,,But before distribution, the bags must of course be strictly checked for the correct content. IRIS helps the pharmacist with this by automatically carrying out this checking process with a highly sensitive and accurate camera. In addition, a photo of each pouch is saved for later reference. Pharmacists thus fully comply with the increasingly strict guidelines.

Large institutional pharmacies and pharmacy chains have been using this technique for some time and use IRIS' big brother Photon, which can handle large volumes of medicines and at a higher speed. IRIS has been specially developed for smaller pharmacies and dispensing general practitioners. Garlich: ,,The same reliable control quality as Photon, but in a very compact machine and with an interesting price tag''. Bloemhof agrees, who has been working with IRIS for 6 months now. “IRIS is value for money. Price and performance is great, the device is really cheap. This is a product that is suitable to be supplied with any packaging machine for medicines.”

In recent months, IRIS has been extensively tested at two pharmacists, including the hospital pharmacy of Nij Smellinge. IRIS will go into production after the summer. ZiuZ hopes to be able to help even more pharmacists in the world with IRIS. Garlich: "Not only to make their drug delivery safer, but above all to contribute to a more efficient and effective drug intake by patients."

Press presentation

IRIS was presented to the (trade) press and the medical world on Thursday 14 July 2016. Together with production partner Variass Medical Systems, ZiuZ will ensure sufficient availability of the new machine immediately after the summer.