Objective:

To determine the impact of automated dispensing on patient safety in a Critical Care Unit and measure the dispensing time to know the effects on patient care and health workers.

Methodology:

Retrospective observational study. The technique was to document the dispensing taking the databases in the traditional and automated system processed in Microsoft Excel and measuring time.

Results:

With the automated system, the use of controls for access in the dispensing of medicines and supplies was 100 %. And, the percentage of cases of problems with the use of medicines in the traditional system was 0.38 and in the automated system it fell to 0.007.

Discussion:

Going from manual to automated in the dispensing represents a reduction in time from one day to 22 seconds, the use of 100 % of technological alerts and the efficiency in the dispensing processes reflected by 15.2 % of transactions in the load of medical devices and drugs.

Conclusions:

Automated dispensing impacts on the patient by shortening the time for the medication to be administered in a timely manner, in workers this time is an advantage to invest in care, the automated system equipment adds controls that help the double check in the readiness and burden and reducing adverse events. And, in the organization it reduces the events related to container breakage, packaging damage due to less manipulation and disposal of medicines in closed cabinets.