It all started many years ago with simple dose administration aids that assisted the elderly with daily medication management. The most sophisticated of these was the plastic "Dosette" which had 28 compartments divided in to 7 days with 4 dosing times. Patients or family members where often required to pack the dose administration aids themselves at first.
Later pharmacies assisted patients with them but it was time consuming and any charge to the patient was usually fairly modest, more a goodwill gesture. Then came the pharmacy loaded Webster Packs which were made up of a 28 compartment platform which was a lot easier to load and then sealed with a pre-printed (with dose instruction from patient records) adhesive sheet with each compartment accessible in turn according to the dose schedule. Initially this was all done manually and not a cost effective service for the time it took the pharmacy for what patients could afford to pay.
With the great improvement in patient compliance and reduction in dosing errors the government started introducing some funding (e.g. for Repat patients). Also semi-mechanised systems became available making it more efficient. More utilisations of assistants with pharmacist only involved in final checking improved cost effectiveness as long as you could increase patient numbers or get a nursing home contract. Later still with validated computerised systems that pack and seal automatically according to the patients medication chart. Of course hugely expensive it was not an option for individual pharmacies unless they had a large number of nursing homes. Increase volumes also meant it was more cost effective for pharmacies and patients.
As larger operators saw this becoming a business in its own right with greater economies of scale it became an option for pharmacies, nursing homes, residential care operators to sub contract the work out to the big operators. Even if the patients weekly packs are done in an interstate plant, with efficient ordering and shipping schedules that is not an issue for a patient regular medications. PRN (as required) medications are still administered from supplies held in a nursing station or by the patient themselves in the home situation.
Because of funding support and high volume, mechanised systems it has all become more affordable and a huge benefit to patient compliance and reduction of medication errors. MPS have developed a great business model through gaining better and better economies of scale. It is a great pick up for Sigma given their great logistics network where they deliver to pharmacies every day already so a shipping cost saving for the dosage aid business already.
A link to MPS website below.
http://mps-aust.com.au/
