What was the initial focus of early pharmacy automation in healthcare settings?

Inventory control and dispensing accuracy on a mass scale

The initial phase of pharmacy automation took root in larger healthcare settings like hospitals, where the primary goals were necessitated by high volume and complexity. This involved establishing systems focused intently on rigorous inventory control to track thousands of drug types and ensuring dispensing accuracy when fulfilling countless daily prescriptions for many patients. This industrial approach prioritized management of the supply chain rather than individual patient convenience, laying the conceptual groundwork for later personal devices by validating mechanical sorting and dispensing on a large scale.