Abstract
Background: To remain relevant in the customer-oriented market, hospitals must pay attention to the quality of services and meet customers' expectations from admission to discharge stage. For an outpatient customer, pharmacy is the last unit visited before discharge. It is likely to influence patient satisfaction and reflect the quality of hospital's service. However, at certain hospitals, the waiting time is long. Resources need to be deployed strategically to reduce queue time. Objective: This research aims to arrange the number of staff (pharmacists and workers) in each station in the pharmacy outpatient service to minimise the queue time.Methods: A discrete simulation method is used to observe the waiting time spent at the pharmacy. The simulation run is valid and effective to test the scenario. Results: It is recommended to add more personnel for the non-compounding medicine and packaging to reduce the waiting time by 22.41%Conclusion: By adding personnel to non-compounding and packaging stations, the system performance could be improved. Cost-effectiveness analysis should be done to corroborate the finding. Keywords: Discrete Event Simulation, Hospital, Outpatient Service, Pharmacy Unit, System AnalysisBackground: To remain relevant in the customer-oriented market, hospitals must pay attention to the quality of services and meet customers' expectations from admission to discharge stage. For an outpatient customer, pharmacy is the last unit visited before discharge. It is likely to influence patient satisfaction and reflect the quality of hospital's service. However, at certain hospitals, the waiting time is long. Resources need to be deployed strategically to reduce queue time. Objective: This research aims to arrange the number of staff (pharmacists and workers) in each station in the pharmacy outpatient service to minimise the queue time.Methods: A discrete simulation method is used to observe the waiting time spent at the pharmacy. The simulation run is valid and effective to test the scenario. Results: It is recommended to add more personnel for the non-compounding medicine and packaging to reduce the waiting time by 22.41%Conclusion: By adding personnel to non-compounding and packaging stations, the system performance could be improved. Cost-effectiveness analysis should be done to corroborate the finding. Keywords:Discrete Event Simulation, Hospital, Outpatient Service, Pharmacy Unit, System Analysis
Highlights
A healthcare facility must be people-centred, effective, efficient, safe and seeks to deliver the best care for its patients [1]
The result of the simulation is divided into two parts: existing condition simulation and improvement scenario simulation
The simulation of the existing model is carried out using the Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model
Summary
A healthcare facility must be people-centred, effective, efficient, safe and seeks to deliver the best care for its patients [1]. Hospitals must pay attention to the quality of services and meet their customers' expectations. The pharmacy, which is usually the last unit visited by patients, may influence customer satisfaction and the hospital reputation in general [11], [12]. This department is responsible for acquiring and dispensing medicines to patients. Objective: This research aims to arrange the number of staff (pharmacists and workers) in each station in the pharmacy outpatient service to minimise the queue time. Cost-effectiveness analysis should be done to corroborate the finding
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