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KMID : 0869620110280040364
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Journal of Korean Society of Hospital Pharmacists
2011 Volume.28 No. 4 p.364 ~ p.371
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The reduction of unreturned medication by improving the various medication return activities
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Oh Da-eun
Lee Me-soo
Lee Yoon-duck
Ye Kyong-Nam
Kim Jung-Tae
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Abstract
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The medication of inpatients are prepared and administered by prescription. In this
process, prescription is occasionally cancelled and medication is not administered on the patient for various reasons, such as patient rejection, modified quantity and usage, change in patient status, change in insurance application, discharge or death of patient, and prescription input error. The medication is then sent to the department of pharmacy to be re-warehoused.
However, medication is frequently unreturned due to lack of awareness on duties related with returned medication and inadequacy of related computer work. Unreturned medication triggers hospital financial loss and reduces efficiency of medication warehouse management, including psychotropic medication and costly medication. Hereupon, the purpose of this study is to reduce the number of unreturned medication by improving duties related with returned medication.
Medication return status was investigated in medication prescribed for inpatients and for emergency patients at Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong during July and October of 2010 to compare the unreturned medication rate and unreturned medication price before and after improvement of returned medication duties. To achieve improvement, unreturned medication list was issued to wards every Wednesday and daily output computer program of emergency room was developed to facilitate analysis on medication output and returned prescription. Also, output of cancelled medication was reduced by analyzing the regular medication return prescription before shipping and designating pharmacist for managing such duties. Education on return method was provided to the ward to reduce medication that was not being returned due to difficulty in re-use.
In result, the unreturned medication rate was reduced from 7.79% to 2.91%(p=0.117) while the unreturned medication price was significantly reduced from 2,962,372 won to 515,969won(p=0.021). In particular, the greatest effect was presented in the emergency room, where the unreturned rate was decreased from 63.05% to 2.88%. Improving duties related with returned medication helped to reduce unreturned medication and provided efficient execution of medication warehouse management. Department of pharmacy and related departments must recognize the importance of returning medication and cooperate with one another to exert continuous efforts to reduce unreturned medication.
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KEYWORD
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Returned medication, Unreturned medication rate, Improving duties
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