Baptist Health opens high-tech pharmacy center in La Grange to sort meds for 9 hospitals

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Robots will help sort and distribute medications at a new pharmacy distribution center opened by Kentucky's largest healthcare system.

On Wednesday, Baptist Health cut the ribbon on the $40 million Central Pharmacy Service Center in La Grange.

The state-of-the-art project broke ground in Sept. 2022. The 102,000 square-foot facility is located on the Baptist Health La Grange campus. It is one of the first autonomous pharmacy centers in the country. The facility will fill up to 14,000 prescriptions per day with 200 employees.

Robots will help organize medications, so all nine hospitals in the Baptist Health system around the state can more efficiently receive and distribute medications to their patients. Pharmacists will be on hand as the final check to ensure the medication is filled accurately.

Baptist Health CEO Gerard Colman said the technology will not only make Kentuckians healthier by cutting down on medication delays, but the center is a small step toward making healthcare more affordable by streamlining the process.

"Its advanced technology is state-of-the-art, and we got this technology - not from other pharma companies. We didn't figure it out from traditional designs. We went to industry experts in logistics and supply chain," Colman said.

"We went to Amazon, our very own UPS right here in Kentucky, we went through all of these folks to find out what's the best way for us to design and build the state-of-the-art pharmacy operation of the future," he said.

Baptist Health will also continue its partnerships with Oldham County schools. It will be opening up some classroom space and helping expand the healthcare sciences program.

Local leaders also declared Wednesday Baptist Health Central Pharmacies Day.

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