The pilot project aims to improve medication safety for clients and free up the time of home care staff from medication distribution visits to home visits that are more meaningful to the clients’ wellbeing.
The current automatic medicine dispensers in use in Helsinki dispense medicines in single-dose sachets. Clients have been very satisfied with the service, giving it an excellent client satisfaction rating in 2025 (4.14 on a scale 1–5.).
However, sachets are not a suitable dispensing method for everyone. This pilot is looking for a solution for such clients.
“The medicine cup option will make the service more accessible, for example to people whose fine motor skills do not allow the handling of single-dose sachets,” says Päivi Kujala, the Head of Home Care with Helsinki Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division.
Completely new way to distribute medicines
During the pilot, pharmacists will ensure the mechanical dispensing of the client's medicines into the medicine cups. The pharmacists and home care nurses check the medicines before they are distributed to the client.
“This is the first time in the whole world that this approach is being tested. Home care nurses have previously been responsible for administering medicines,” says Anne-Maria Siitonen, Service Manager at Palvelukeskus Helsinki.
Each medicine cup has an identifier that the automatic medicine dispenser can read to deliver the client's medicines at a correct time, even if the cups are placed in the dispenser in a random order.
“This makes filling the automatic medicine dispenser faster and also improves the safety of medication,” Siitonen points out.
From the pharmacy, the medicine cups are transported to the client’s home in a special transport box designed for the Helsinki pilot by the supplier of the automatic medicine dispensers.
“Each cup has its own compartment in the transport box, preventing them from falling over. Home care professionals are responsible for filling the client's automatic medicine dispenser. Not having to worry about the order in which the cups are placed in the automatic medicine dispenser saves a great deal of time for home care staff,” Kujala describes.
Easier distribution of different medicines
In addition to liquid medicines, it will also be easier to use the automatic medicine dispenser to distribute short-term medication courses and medicines, the dosage of which can vary rapidly. These include antibiotics and blood thinners.
“The medicine cups are an effortless way to distribute a course of medication, for example, as it is easy to add medication to the cups or change the dosage,” Kujala says.
Some of the home care clients participating in the pilot will have supervised medication during the trial period. This means that a caregiver will supervise that the client takes their medicine. The automatic medicine dispenser makes this easy through video calls.
“The tested automatic medicine dispenser has a video call feature and a built-in camera with excellent image quality and the ability to zoom in or out and to turn the camera. The video call feature will only be used when it’s time for the client to take their medication, as agreed in advance,” Siitonen says.
If a client misses a dosage for one reason or another, it can be released for re-taking remotely.
“Medication that has not been taken can be released via a remote connection. This is not yet possible with other dispensers. Previously, releasing the medication has required home care services to visit the client,” says Siitonen.
Positive experiences gained
At the moment, the pilot involves 16 home care clients for whom the traditional automatic medicine dispenser service, based on single-dose sachets, is not suitable. The pilot was launched in March, and the experiences gained have largely been positive.
“The nurses of the remote health care service and home care services in the pilot area have been quite happy with the automatic medicine dispenser service so far, and there have been no major technical challenges,” says Siitonen.
The effectiveness of the automatic medicine dispenser will also be evaluated in a thesis and later through a customer satisfaction survey. The pilot project’s working group will evaluate its success in the coming autumn.