Neville Heather, Nodwell Lisa, Alsharif Sahar
BScPharm, MSc, is a Drug Utilization Pharmacist with the Capital District Health Authority, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
BScPharm, ACPR, is a Clinical Pharmacist with the Capital District Health Authority, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Can J Hosp Pharm. 2014 Nov;67(6):410-5. doi: 10.4212/cjhp.v67i6.1402.
Reducing medication turnaround time can improve efficiency, patient safety, and quality of care in the hospital setting. Digital scanning technology (DST) can be used to electronically transmit scanned prescriber orders to a pharmacy computer queue for verification and processing, which may help to improve medication turnaround time.
To evaluate medication turnaround time before and after implementation of DST for all medications and for antibiotics only.
Medication turnaround times were evaluated retrospectively for periods before (June 6-10, 2011) and after (September 26-30, 2011) implementation of DST at 2 hospital sites in 1 health region. Medication turnaround time was defined as the time from composition of a medication order by the prescriber to its verification by the pharmacy (phase 1) and the time from prescriber composition to administration to the patient by a nurse (total). Median turnaround times were analyzed with SPSS software using the Mann-Whitney U test.
In total, 304 and 244 medication orders were audited before and after DST implementation, respectively. Median phase 1 turnaround time for all medications declined significantly, from 2 h 23 min before DST implementation to 1 h 33 min after DST implementation (p < 0.001). Antibiotics were also processed significantly faster (1 h 51 min versus 1 h 9 min, p = 0.015). However, total turnaround time for all medications did not differ significantly (5 h 15 min versus 5 h 0 min, p = 0.42).
Implementation of DST was associated with a 50-min decrease in medication turnaround time for the period from when an order was prescribed to the time it was processed by the pharmacy. Regular evaluation of medication turnaround times is recommended to compare with benchmarks, to ensure that hospital standards are being met, and to measure the effects of policy changes and implementation of new technology on medication-use processes.
缩短用药周转时间可提高医院环境中的效率、患者安全及护理质量。数字扫描技术（DST）可用于将扫描的处方医嘱电子传输至药房计算机队列进行核查和处理，这可能有助于缩短用药周转时间。
评估实施DST前后所有药物及仅抗生素的用药周转时间。
回顾性评估了1个健康区域内2家医院在实施DST之前（2011年6月6日至10日）和之后（2011年9月26日至30日）的用药周转时间。用药周转时间定义为从开方者开具用药医嘱到药房核查的时间（阶段1）以及从开方者开具医嘱到护士给药的总时间。使用SPSS软件通过曼-惠特尼U检验分析中位数周转时间。
实施DST前后分别共审核了304份和244份用药医嘱。所有药物的阶段1中位数周转时间显著下降，从实施DST前的2小时23分钟降至实施DST后的1小时33分钟（p<0.001）。抗生素的处理速度也显著加快（1小时51分钟对1小时9分钟，p = 0.015）。然而，所有药物的总周转时间无显著差异（5小时15分钟对5小时0分钟，p = 0.42）。
实施DST与从开具医嘱到药房处理的用药周转时间减少50分钟相关。建议定期评估用药周转时间以与基准进行比较，确保达到医院标准，并衡量政策变化和新技术实施对用药流程的影响。
