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Benchmarking the current dispensing rate of Welsh hospital pharmacies
Author(s) -
Hiom S.,
Roberts D.,
Hawksbee M.,
Burfield R.,
Francis M.,
Walker K.,
Lord S.,
Warner N.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.622
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2710
pISSN - 0269-4727
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2710.2006.00750.x
Subject(s) - welsh , benchmarking , pharmacy , medicine , hospital pharmacy , family medicine , medical emergency , business , geography , marketing , archaeology
Summary Background: There is a need to develop capacity measures for pharmacy services for strategic purposes, to provide guidance on safe working limits and to contribute to the target 40% reduction in serious medication errors by 2005. Attempts have been made to quantify workloads in the form of items/person/hour (i/p/h). However, much of these data are anecdotal, small scale or associated with vague methodology. Objective: We estimate national average dispensing rates by collecting accurate data from secondary care dispensaries across Wales. Method: Seventeen sites collected hourly data relating to staff time and items dispensed over a 3‐day period. The result showed a Welsh national average for non‐specialist hospital pharmacy dispensing rates of 9·9 items/person/h (95% CI = 0·9, n = 17). There was a significant positive association between hospital size and telephone interruptions ( r s = 0·83, P < 0·001) but no correlation between hospital size and dispensing rates ( r s = 0·06, P = 0·822).