Development of a pre-dispensing system in inpatient pharmacy services to reduce medication error

Abstract

The objectives of this action research were to develop a pre-dispensing system directly related to the work system within the inpatient pharmaceutical service at Phrachomklao hospital, Phetchaburi province and to study the effect of development on pre-dispensing error and dispensing error. The study was conducted between 1st November 2019 - 31st July 2020 on government office hours. The population and sample were a copy of the doctor order sheet. The tools used for data collection were: risk incident reporting program by collecting pre-dispensing error and dispensing error before and after system development using descriptive statistics.
The study found that after the development of inpatient pharmaceutical service system, The pre-dispensing error rate decreased from 8.42 to 5.52 per 1,000 patient-days and the dispensing error rate decreased from 4.62 to 2.96 per 1,000 patient-days. There was no category E to I error. The pre-dispensing error rate in the transcription process decreased from 4.64 to 3.5 per 1,000 patient-days and in the drug preparation decreased from 3.78 to 1.98 per 1,000 patient-days.
Summary : Development of a pre-dispensing system for inpatient pharmaceutical services can reduce the rate of pre-dispensing error and dispensing error but the error rate must be collected continuously to reflect the effectiveness of the system and the practice of following personnel guidelines for the patient medication safety of the patient’s use of the medicine.