Raviwan Wittawassamrankul. Assessment of mail service pharmacy for outpatients with chronic diseases at Lerdsin Hospital . Master's Degree(Pharmacy Administration). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2003.
Assessment of mail service pharmacy for outpatients with chronic diseases at Lerdsin Hospital
Abstract:
The objective of this study was to assess mail service pharmacy for outpatients with chronic diseases. With this model, after patients visited their doctors and submitted the prescriptions to the outpatient pharmacy unit, they could go back home and then the pharmacy unit would send the medicine by mail. The study was composed of three parts: 1) to find the percentage of patients with chronic diseases who chose mail service pharmacy and to summarize their attitudes, 2) to collect opinions about this pharmacy from hospital personnel, and 3) to study its operation costs. The first two parts involved cross-sectional studies based on interviews of the receivers of the drug, pharmacy staff, and physicians, using three different questionnaires. For the third part, the estimation of operation costs, information was based on data of cost analysis and labour cost from Lerdsin Hospital and material cost from Srithanya Hospital collected from February to April 2003. Of the 303 people picking up drugs (for chronic diseases), 115 (38.0%) chose mail service pharmacy. The demographic categories found to be favorable to use of mail service pharmacy were: relatives picking up drugs for patients; aged patients; business owners; and civil servant. Also, the higher the income of the patient the more likelihood of choosing mail service pharmacy. Reasons given included convenience and saving time. Moreover, 91% of patients agreed that there should be an extra charge for the mail service. Eleven of the 18 hospital personnel interviewed said that they would agreed to the program if the hospital tried it, and of the 12 from the pharmacy staff nine believed the service would solve the crowding problem in the hospital outpatient pharmacy unit. However, most hospital personnel interviewed were uncertain about cost and hospital readiness. I found that the estimated operation cost for the program would be about 43 baht per parcel - about 9 baht for packing, about 16 Baht for postal fees and about 18 baht for labour. The results from this study might be also useful for assessment of the feasibility of instituting mail service pharmacy at other hospital. In addition, this method of hospital drug dispensing should decrease the patient's dissatisfaction with crowded situations and the long waiting time