16 May DETERMINE THE PROBLEM
Choice Pharmacy has been located within a busy area of Hilliard, Ohio for more than 7 years. The headquarters is in Louisville, Kentucky. The pharmacy has a reputation to assist patients with their best quality of services. The pharmacy believes that quality of life should meet with quality of services in order to provide better health care facilities to their patients. We take pride in the services we provide; such as, better quality care at a more affordable price to many different nursing homes and patients.
Choice Pharmacy, like most pharmacies, recurrently gets complaints from patients regarding a shortage of pills when we fill their prescriptions. Technicians and pharmacists are also dissatisfied with the time it takes to count the pills when filling-up prescriptions. Pharmacists would like to spend more time with patients discussing their health problems rather than verifying the quantities due to human errors when counting pills. The problem gets severe when many patients complaint about the same issue.
Due to the growing number of concerns about miscounted prescriptions,we propose the purchase of a new pill counting machine for the pharmacy dispensing unit as the solution to this problem. This will save the pharmacy technicians and pharmacists time by eliminated the tedious task of counting hundreds of pills by hand, while simultaneously drastically reducing the frequency of counting errors. First, we will address the problems, then analyze it with different aspects and come up with an evidence to support that the purchase of a pill counting machine will be a great asset to Choice Pharmacy.
Toperform this research and come up with the solution for the problem, we would require almost seven weeks. The proposed tasks of this project will include identifying the problem, determining the rate of prescription filling, evaluating different options and finally coming up with the recommended pill counting machine. The total cost of the project would be $1970 which includes travelling expenses, labor cost and buying the actual machine. The completion date of the project would be November 24, 2012.
Introduction
We are seeking permission from the administration and management division of the Choice Pharmacy to buy a new pill counting machine for the product dispensing unit of the pharmacy. We are also analyzing how the new equipment would help pharmacists and technicians to better serve customers by avoiding pill counting errors. We are going to analyze the problems and come up with the solution for the problem, based on the frequency and severity of the problem. The satisfaction of pharmacists and other staff member of the pharmacy will also be taken into consideration before buying and setting up the new pill counting machine.
The medicine will only have its optimum effect if there is an appropriate amount of drug inside the blood-stream. There will not be enough concentration of medication if one forgets to take the medicine or if the patient does not have enough medicines due to the error caused by a technician or a pharmacist. Human errors while counting pills always have a dangerous consequence towards patients’ health conditions. During the peak hours, pharmacists and technicians are more prone to make mistakes in counting pills because they are very busy in filling-up many prescriptions at the same time. Pharmacists have many other duties such as counselling patients, managing pharmacy and the staff, verifying prescriptions, checking drug interactions, keep updating the record of controlled substances etc. While performing other tasks, pharmacists also have to count controlled substances which consumes most of their times. Technicians also have to count all other medicines and double count controlled substances. When the pharmacy is very busy, technicians are more prone to make counting errors and so sometimes pharmacists have to verify the quantities but pharmacists do not have time to check each and every medication going out of the pharmacy.
The patients get disappointed when they do not receive the quantities they were supposed to get and often become very frustrated and angry on technicians and pharmacists because of pills shortage. The problem does not leave a good impression on patients towards pharmacy and so they transfer their prescriptions to other pharmacies and if the problem does not get solved, ultimately pharmacy lose their business. The definite solution for this problem would be having a pill counting machine that can avoid human errors and saves pharmacists and technicians their precious time so that they can spend more time on counselling patients and be more alert towards the health care problems of the patients. In an interview with Dr. Brent Kaleta, he agreed on the fact that pill counting machine helps a lot in avoiding counting errors and provide patients with better health care services. He also agreed that the pharmacy must have at least one pill counting machine so that pharmacists can focus on other important duties (B.Kaleta, personal interview, October 12, 2012).
Jamie Coleman in an article focusing on computerized pill counting machines, described that many pharmacies in several countries have now adapted the computerized pill counting machines to better server health care and research process (Coleman, 2008). Michael Stotz in his news section for Kirby Lester also mentioned that pill counting machines helps pharmacies in reducing human counting errors and also helps in maintaining the inventories of pharmacy (Stotz, 2009).The tablet counting machine may also diminish wastage and ensure hygiene and cleanliness in handling of medicines (Tablet Machines, 2011).
The main objective in solving the problem is to provide advantages of the pill counting machine to the administration and management staff. Detailed explanation on the problem and the solution as well as providing the cost and set-up information will also be the primary focus towards solving the problem. This proposal will focus on proposed tasks, the schedules, experience with the actual problems, proposed cost information and the evidence that it will certainly solve the problems as a way of works citation.
Proposed Tasks
Upon authorization from the management, we will execute following tasks in order to convince management of the importance of purchasing the pill counter machine.
1. Determine the problem
The problem is that the pharmacist and assistants are limited in the time that is available to help patients with their concerns, because of the time consuming task of counting and recounting pills when filling prescription. It is important that each prescription is filled accurately and precisely.
2. Determine the rate at which pharmacist are currently filling prescription medications manually, as compared to the rate that they can be filled by a pill counter.
We need to find a faster, more effective way to count the medications when filling prescriptions. There are pill counting machines available for purchase that may prove to be the perfect solution. If these machines can be found to make the filling of the prescriptions less time consuming and more accurate, then we will advocate the purchase of such a machine.
3. Determine cost and benefit of solution.
We will investigate different sites and retailers to find out the average price of a pill counting machine. Next we will compare different machines and find the benefits and negatives associated with each of them. We will attempt to accurately measure the amount of time that will be saved each day by installing the machine in the pharmacy. Then we will find out if there is any upkeep cost associated with the machine and its average lifespan. The benefit of the machine is equal to the number of human errors that were prevented in addition to the time saved by using the counter.
4. Collect opinions from pharmacists and pharmacy technicians
We will distribute a questionnaire to all Choice Pharmacy employees to get their views on the necessity of a pill counting machine. We will ask them if they have ever felt overwhelmed with having to count pills when they feel there were other task at hand that were more required of their expertise. We will ask them if they have ever made an error when filling a prescription. We will then ask if they believe a pill counting machine would be a valuable addition to the Pharmacy.
5. Evaluate different options for pill counting machines
By comparing the availability and cost effectiveness, we are going to choose an appropriate pill counting machine. The maintenance cost of the machine will also be taken into consideration in evaluating different options for the machine.
6. Choose the machine and recommend it to the management to purchase.
Finally we will propose the purchase of the particular machine that we find to be most appropriate for Choice Pharmacy. If there is a big variation in cost between thedifferent pill counters available we will determine what accounts for that difference, specifically whether the more expensive machines are actually more efficient or just more aesthetically pleasing. The completion date of this project will be November 24, 2012.
Schedule
Following is an agenda of the tasks we will complete for this project.
Management of Choice Pharmacy
Tasks Dates of Tasks (by Weeks)
Task 1: Determine the problem
Task 2: Determine rate of filling
Task 3: Determine cost
Task 4: Collect opinions
Task 5: Evaluate different options
Task 6: Choose the machine
8 15 22 29 05 12 19 24
October November
Figure 1. Schedule of Project Tasks
Management of Choice Pharmacy
Experience
Mitulkumar Bhavsar has two years of experience working as a pharmacy technician. He has a degree in science as well as he is a certified pharmacy technician through pharmacy technician certification board which is a national certification program in pharmacy. He also has a pharmacy intern license through Ohio State Board of Pharmacy and has experience working as an intern. He has experience with the problem stated above regarding the pill counting error for almost 2 years.
Management of Choice Pharmacy
In addition to the experience with the subject, Mitulkumar Bhavsar also has experience in research and professional writing for three years. Adam Walters has 4 years of experience writing reports and compiling empirical evidence at the University level. He is a social science major, skilled in collecting and analyzing group d
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