CRANBERRY TWP — PJ Manni stood in front of the computer screen, typing in prescriptions and dosages for her hypothetical patient.

After a few moments, drawers of the cabinet attached to the machine unlocked and extended, green lights flashing to signal which pod to open. She removed a few pills from each and closed the tray, with the computer signaling that a few were now missing.

It’s a technology that Manni and others at Omnicell are working on to ensure patients are receiving the right drug, in the right dosage, every time. It’s also aimed at keeping medications from falling into the wrong hands.

Manni, who serves as executive nurse consultant, and Doug Descalzi, vice president and general manager of IV solutions for the company, led a tour Monday for Sen. Pat Toomey.

Toomey, R-Pa., said he wanted to see the work being done and hear about the challenges the company faces.

“I wanted to get a firsthand look at a really innovative, cutting edge company that is creating a lot of employment opportunities here in Pittsburgh,” he said.

According to Descalzi, the company employs about 530 people at its two Cranberry Township locations. Descalzi said he, as well as other company representatives, took the opportunity to talk to Toomey about the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which has allowed the company to expand, buy new equipment and potentially hire more employees. They also discussed U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations.

“As we develop new technology, one of the things we want to do is take a more proactive role and try to get those regulations to be supportive of what we’re trying to do,” Descalzi said.

Toomey said while the tax plan has only been in effect for seven months, companies such as Omnicell are seeing benefits. He said a major feature of the plan allows a company that makes investments to expense those costs during the same calendar year.

“People are putting their money to work in their company, which means purchasing more equipment, hiring more workers to operate that equipment, (and) that expands the size of the economy and creates more opportunity, it makes workers more productive when they get to use newer, more sophisticated tools and equipment, and that leads to higher wages,” he said. “It really looks like our tax reform is playing out exactly as we’d hoped it would.”

During his tour Toomey got to see the “bread and butter” of Omnicell’s offerings, including a robotic IV drug machine and various safety tracking units. Descalzi said investments allow the company to focus on issues such as the opioid crisis. The goal, he said, is to use inventory control and tracking to prevent drugs from leaving a facility unaccounted for.

“(We want to) make it far more challenging for people who would seek to divert (medications) and to make people and technology kind of work together on getting it only to the patients that it should get to,” he said. “We know where all these drugs are and they don’t find their way into someone’s pocket or outside on the street.”