Authors (including presenting author) :
Tse WTM(1), Liu HKA(1), Chan YHH(1), Fan SYC(1), Chan NYJ(1), Mak CFT(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Pharmacy, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital
Introduction :
Label Triage – automated diversion of drug labels to different picking stations after prescription data entry – is a re-engineered dispensing system in pharmacy. In contrast to the previous workflow where drug labels were printed by a label printer and dispensing staff had to walk between different drug shelves for medications picking, label triage would divert drug labels to label printers close to drug shelves. Dispensing staff would not be required to move back and forth between drug shelves, and the risk of picking wrong medications from different drug shelves is likely to be reduced. Label triage was proven to improve dispensing efficiency in out-patient pharmacy by shortening the patient waiting time. Label triage has been implemented in PYNEH since October 2020. This study aims to investigate the impact of the label triage system on medication safety and dispensing efficiency in in-patient pharmacy.
Objectives :
To determine the effect of label triage implementation on medication safety (percentage of dispensing errors) and dispensing efficiency (average dispensing duration per item) in an in-patient pharmacy.
Methodology :
Retrospective observational study on the effect of label triage on medication safety and dispensing efficiency was conducted at PYNEH in-patient pharmacy. The performance data was retrieved and observed in a fixed timeframe in two periods– pre-implementation period (4 weeks in September 2020) and post-implementation period (4 weeks in March to April 2021).
Result & Outcome :
35,381 and 26,547 items were dispensed during the pre-implementation period and post-implementation period respectively. 11% reduction in dispensing error was observed (0.007534% v.s. 0.008479%), but statistical significance was not reached (p-value 0.897). A decrease in dispensing efficiency was observed when comparing average dispensing duration per item of pre-implementation period and post-implementation period of label triage (168.65 seconds v.s. 229.84 seconds) with statistical significance (p-value 0.000).
The implementation of label triage numerically improved medication safety through reducing dispensing error. Increased processing time per item after implementation of label triage was observed, probably because the feature of label triage not being fully utilized. Introducing conveyor belts in the in-patient department for more efficient item transportation and assembling stations to facilitate medications sorting after picking would potentially reduce the dispensing processing time.
