Work Analysis of Department of Pharmacy and Consumer Protection : Case Study of a Community Hospital

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the work and the adequacy of manpower in the department of pharmacy and consumer protection in a community hospital, and use the obtained information to improve the efficiency of outpatient pharmacy dispensing services. Methods: The researchers studied work categories and quantities of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians during the weekdays by reviewing relevant documents, interviewing personnel in the department and observing work flow. Standard working hours were determined from literature reviews, stop watch time study and expert opinion for tasks without standard time. Data were prospectively collected during October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020 and retrospectively collected during October 1, 2018 - September 30, 2019. Subsequently, the obtained information was used to analyze the adequacy of manpower in various assumptions and to improve work efficiency. Results: Annual workloads of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians were 15,137.16 and 10,846.12 hours, equivalent to manpower of 9.01 and 6.46 people, respectively. The actual numbers of workers operators were 8 and 6, respectively, that were slightly less than the number that should be. Therefore, work efficiency was purposively improved in outpatient dispensing services because it needed manpower more than the other works. Improvement focused on minimizing the waiting time between work processes. After improvement of outpatient dispensing service, waiting time between work processes significantly reduced from 27.83±16.75 to 12.59±8.90 minutes, while working time significantly reduced from 5.40±2.77 to 4.81±2.40 minutes, (P<0.05), resulting in a significant decrease in patients’ waiting time from 33.23±16.98 to 17.39±9.44 minutes (P<0.05).Conclusions: Work study is an effective method to be taken if an organization has an inadequate manpower. The method provides information that suggests the approach to improve work efficiency with existing manpower without the need to increase manpower.