When should pharmacists visit their wards? An application of simulation to planning hospital pharmacy services.
This paper reports a pilot study of the use of simulation in planning hospital pharmacy services. The objectives were to create a simulation model of the hospital drug distribution system, to use the model to investigate a simple problem and to assess the potential for simulation to aid decision making in hospital pharmacy management. The problem chosen for investigation focused on the UK ward pharmacy system, where a pharmacist visits each ward daily to initiate the supply of newly prescribed non-stock medication. A simulation model was used to investigate how changing the time of the ward pharmacist's visit could affect the mean time delay between the prescription of a non-stock drug and the arrival of that drug on the ward. The simulation results suggest that the time of day at which pharmacists visit their wards can have a major impact on delay times, and that the relative benefit of different visit times is likely to vary between wards. Simulation was found to be a useful approach to investigating different service alternatives without the expense and disruption of assessing each in practice.
Dean
B
B
Centre for Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy, London University, UK. bryony@cua.ulsop.ac.uk
van Ackere
A
A
Gallivan
S
S
Barber
N
N
D003198:Computer Simulation; D006757:Hospital Units / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015274:Interdepartmental Relations; D008510:Medication Systems, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017146:Models, Organizational; D010595:Pharmacists; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D006113:United Kingdom