title: Pharmacokinetic consultation service workload measurement study.
abstract: A study was conducted to collect work measurement data for pharmacokinetic drug consultation services. A stopwatch was used to measure the time required to perform pharmacokinetic consultations in the Ottawa General Hospital, a 530-bed tertiary care teaching hospital. Ten pharmacists provided 166 drug consults primarily for phenytoin, aminoglycosides, digoxin, and theophylline. The time required to obtain drug level measurements averaged 1.10 minutes. Consults required an average of 8.28 (SD = 4.72) minutes. Initial consults took 10.35 (SD = 5.07) minutes, while repeat consults took 6.62 (SD = 3.67) minutes. The difference was significant (t = 5.48, df = 164, P less than 0.001). No significant differences were found among consults for different drugs nor between primary and secondary patient coverage areas. There was a significant difference in the time required to perform a consult among pharmacists. Consult times were considerably less than those reported by the Canadian Hospital Pharmacy Workload Measurement Study.
authors: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Ontario.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Nezis
authors: T R
authors: TR
authors: Einarson
authors: M G
authors: MG
authors: Tierney
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003625:Data Collection; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009864:Ontario; D010599:Pharmacokinetics; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012107:Research Design; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D016526:Workload / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*