One of the ongoing worries I have is that there seems to be very little interest in performing and publishing research on pharmacy operations. Clinical practice is important, but its effect can be diminished if the medications are not available when needed.
A notable exception to this trend was a student poster by Anjali Talwar, Claudia Reyes Esteves and Melissa Martin entitled Optimizing an Inpatient Hospital’s Pharmacy Technician Operation to Improve Medication Delivery and Reduce Delays in Patient Care at the Midyear Clinical Meeting in Las Vegas. When I saw it, it warmed my heart.
In brief, this poster by used information readily available and implemented changes to pharmacy technician workflow to achieve reductions in the time spent per unit on deliveries of medications, number of missing medications and time spent pulling medications in central pharmacy.
I was further impressed and gratified to see the level of excitement they shared in having performed this work on operations and their concern for ensuring that the techniques employed could be sustained after the end of their presence at the hospital.
How can we help build this level of enthusiasm for the operational side of pharmacy and stimulate more research in this area both within our pharmacy students and within our research colleagues? In my opinion, these are problems worth defining and solving.
As always, the comments in this blog reflect my thoughts and not necessarily those of ASHP or of my employer.
Dennis A. Tribble, PharmD, FASHP
Ormond Beach, FL
datdoc@aol.com