Authors (including presenting author) :
Tsang KW(1),Lai C(2),Ng V(1),Yip EYT(1),Wong WJF(1),Ng TW(1),Lam HF(1),Poon YY(1),Wong M(2),Tong KM(2),Lam Q(2)
Affiliation :
(1)PMH Pharmacy Department,(2)KWC Information Technology Department
Introduction :
Princess Margaret Hospital Pharmacy is responsible to prepare over 200 Emergency drug kits (E-Kit) which contain medications essential for clinical emergencies in the hospital. The frequency of E-Kit exchange has doubled from 937 to 1979 episodes annually over the past ten years. Preparation and exchange of E-Kit processes are time consuming and arduous due to complexity of the tasks involved. Previously, an in-house computer program was used for kit management but it has limitations and could no longer function under the Window 10 environment.
Objectives :
To develop a web based computer program to reengineer the E-kit management processes.
Methodology :
A new web-based Pharmacy Kit Management System (PKMS) with comprehensive features was designed by Pharmacy in collaboration with Information Technology (IT) Team in 2019, with new features allowing multiple users access, staff card login, reports generation, and automatic email reminders to facilitate advance procurement process.
Result & Outcome :
PKMS enhances the efficiency of E-Kit preparation at Pharmacy by replacing tedious manual workflow with an IT-assisted workflow. Multiple users can access PKMS via any Pharmacy Terminals or iPads concurrently compared to single-user access previously. This allows pharmacy to tackle large volume of E-kit exchange in situation like expired drug/drug recalls with much higher efficiency, and reduces the amount of time required for processing each E-kit exchange episode. The tracking time of E-kit for expiry date exchange/drug recall is reduced drastically from 2 hours to 5 seconds. New features of PKMS allows generation of various reports, such as workload reports, short expiry item reports, and hugely reduces the time spent
on monthly workload review and inventory control. The automatic alert function improves expiry date checking to mitigate expired drug incidents. In addition, an automatic email generation function prevents communication gap with procurement team to enable advance procurement planning for short expiries items. The monthly man-hours spent in E-kit management was reduced by 60% from 5 hours to 2 hours. Apart from E-kit, PKMS is also used
for Chemotherapy-Spillage Kits and Chemical-Spillage Kits. A staff satisfaction-survey for PKMS was conducted in January 2020. 96% of respondents (n=28) agreed that PKMS improves accessibility and is able to facilitate the E-kit management processes. All respondents (100%) showed satisfaction with PKMS. The program was further rolled out to North Lantau Hospital successfully in November 2020.
