Abstract

PROSPECTIVE, OBSERVATIONAL, RANDOMIZATION STUDY OF OPERATIONAL AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF OUTPATIENT HOSPITAL PHARMACY

Hardi Patel*, Shrikalp Deshpande and Roshni Patel

ABSTRACT

Aim: To study Operational and Performance Analysis of Outpatient Hospital Pharmacy. Objective: To demonstrate the use of an efficient quality improvement approach to identify pharmacy operational problems. And identify the factors associated with waiting time for services offered at outpatient pharmacy. Measure the overall patient waiting time at outpatient pharmacy. Background: Generally, in outpatient hospital pharmacy patient wait for queue for billing of prescription, time to dispensing of medicine and counselling time. Using queuing theory in pharmacy mainly find factor leading to excessive waiting time, correlation between waiting time and patient satisfaction determine by using queuing approach. This study is important in identifying factors that affect outpatient pharmacy waiting time and ways to improve patient’s satisfaction and fundamental understanding. Materials and Methods: Prospective observational randomized study was conducted for a period of 6 months in Hospital outpatient pharmacy. Data were collected using the techniques of work flow analysis and stopwatch was used to measure time spent in each component. A validated questionnaire was administered on the outpatients who measured their level of satisfaction with pharmaceutical services. Results: Major components include patient queue length for billing of prescription. (2.4min) Mean waiting time for dispensing of medicine when staff 13, and 9 were 5.6 and 7.5min. The average waiting time is 14min patient are satisfied with services. 50% of the patients were not satisfied with waiting time to collect their medicines. Conclusion: Need to reduce the time of dispensing procedure and patient call for counseling so that more time could be devoted. When training was given to the pharmacy staff afterwards the performance of outpatient pharmacy had been increased.

Keywords: Waiting Time, Queuing Theory, Automated Queuing Technology (AQT), Pharmacy Services, Out Patient Pharmacy.