Abstract
Pharmacy departments are technical and administrative units in hospitals that relate to several other departments, and thus they have a strategic status on supervising the medication system. The hospital pharmacy department has an important role on patient safety, as it can work on error prevention, avoiding mistakes on the process. If there are no precautions implemented on medication system, there will be greater risk of errors, which could unavoidably harm the patient’s health. In this context, this article reports a research applied on a psychiatric hospital in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The following issue was the starting point of the research: how is the configuration of the medication system in this hospital? The objective was to analyze the system, through mapping, in order to identify strategic opportunities for design. Results demonstrate that the medication system is integrated to the pharmacy, and depends on it. Results also suggests that strategic design interventions on storage, fractionation, separation and dispensation of drugs could contribute to the safety of the system as a whole. Keywords: strategic design, hospital pharmacy department, medication system, error prevention.
Highlights
Strategic design occurs on the path which considers the system integrating a series of related factors, such as viewing and representing scenarios and developing means of solving problems by combining various forms of knowledge (Cautela, 2007)
The hospital pharmacy, especially, is a strategic action sector in that system (Lopes et al, 2012; Anacleto, 2010), because its professionals are in a position which enables them to supervise the quality of a great part of the medication process (Guchelaar et al, 2005)
The research reported in this paper was applied in the pharmacy of a psychiatric hospital in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. It was based on the following assumptions: medication error is an issue from which no hospital is immune (Werner et al, 2012); creating a safety culture is necessary to reduce the probability that mistakes will occur (Schneider, 2007); the data flow which leads to medication errors can be reduced through organizational learning routines deployed in the pharmacy (Tamuz et al, 2004)
Summary
Strategic design occurs on the path which considers the system integrating a series of related factors, such as viewing and representing scenarios and developing means of solving problems by combining various forms of knowledge (Cautela, 2007). It was based on the following assumptions: medication error is an issue from which no hospital is immune (Werner et al, 2012); creating a safety culture is necessary to reduce the probability that mistakes will occur (Schneider, 2007); the data flow which leads to medication errors can be reduced through organizational learning routines deployed in the pharmacy (Tamuz et al, 2004). Aiming at design projects that contribute to safety by preventing medication errors, the necessity of understanding the work process of the pharmacy being studied guided the research It was established, in face of the problem of how to configure the medication system in that hospital. The system map eased the indication of key points so that design actions can be deployed in that context, strengthening the medication system’s safety
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