DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SURVEY TO EVALUATE A PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICE MODEL IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CENTERS
European Statement
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Author(s)
Martin Torrente. A; Picaza Iturricha. E; Carmona Oyaga. P; Lombera Sáez. L; Gemio Zumalave. PR; Illodo Becerra. JA; Ibarra Barrueta. O.
Why was it done?
The Hospital Pharmacy Department developed a unit to dispense medications in individualized dosing systems for residents of health and social centers with the aim of improving pharmaceutical care. This initiative seeks to ensure safe, efficient and patient‑centred medication supply managementin centers.
What was done?
A structured survey was designed and distributed to healthcare professionals to evaluate the service provided.
How was it done?
The questionnaire was created through a collaborative brainstorming session with the pharmaceutical team following literature review of existing tools. Thematic domains were defined based on practical experience and service priorities. Each section was assigned to a different pharmacist to ensure clarity, relevance and consistency. The final 36‑item survey, generated using Google Forms, included two descriptive questions (nursing home name and respondent’s professional role) and 34 evaluative questions grouped into four thematic areas: 14 questions on satisfaction with medication deliveries (blister-packed and non-blistered), 6 on incident resolution, 8 on logistics of transport and 6 on overall perception of the impact on professional workflow and patient safety. The survey combines Likert scales, multiple-choice items and open-ended fields to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback.
What has been achieved?
The survey captures satisfaction with deliveries and labelling, completeness of orders, incident management and logistics aspects such as punctuality, packaging condition and integrity. It also gathers overall perceptions of the service’s impact on workflow and patient safety. Open‑ended fields encourage reporting of problems, suggestions and observations to ensure a comprehensive view of performance.
What next?
The questionnaire will be distributed to health and social centers. Data will be analysed to inform service improvements. Cronbach’s alpha is used to assess internal consistency and p‑values to examine significant differences. Findings will identify strengths and areas for improvement in the pharmaceutical care model, inform training strategies and support future policy decisions.
Parameters involved in medication dispensing automation security and performance
Pdf
European Statement
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Author(s)
Hind Bouami, Dorine Castillo
Why was it done?
The human-machine system designer has to make decisions to secure and improve the automation process, and handle organization’s complexity. Documenting human agent’s situation awareness is crucial to support human-machine designers’ decision-making. Knowledge about risks, critical parameters and factors that can impact and threaten automation system’s performance and security are valuable for human agents, and should be collected using preventive and retrospective approaches.The evaluation of Macon hospital center’s automation performance enables to identify critical parameters to control in order to secure the human-machine system.
What was done?
An automation evaluation approach has been conducted in Macon hospital center, a hospital equipped with automated drug dispensing solutions for more than 5 years. The analysis of Macon hospital center automation’s feedback provides relevant information to enhance the perception and the comprehension of the system’s complexity fully, environmental factors that interact with the system, and to identify critical parameters in the automation process. Therefore, agents can design a projection of a secure and performant automated organization. This information will enable hospitals to make effective decisions to improve their automation project performance.
How was it done?
We deployed an anthropocentric approach for automated system evaluation in Macon hospital center.
Our approach integrates six steps that are run in automated hospital pharmacies to analyze their feedback [6]:
1) The identification of pharmacy’s automation needs and objectives, and the analysis of operational environment and existing equipment,
2) The analysis of automated equipment functional specifications formalized by the pharmacy,
3) The evaluation of automation deployment results and related gains,
4) The evaluation of specific actions implemented by the pharmacy during automation process,
5) The analysis of the parameters to control for automated equipment integration security and performance,
6) The analysis of factors influencing human-machine interaction.
What has been achieved?
The analysis of Macon hospital center pharmacy’s automation specifications revealed that 66.22% of automation requirements are technical, 29.73% concern human-machine interaction, and 4.05% relate to human aspects.
80.95% of automation specification related to the chosen Sinteco’s automated solution are met. The performance of the chosen automated solution is involved in 28.38% of automation specifications performance in Macon hospital center. The remaining systemic parameters involved in automation specifications performance need to be controlled.
Critical systemic parameters involved in automated solutions specifications and performance that have been identified through Macon hospital’s automation feedback are: the specificities of the chosen automated solution, hospital’s strategic decisions and budgetary constraints, the complexity of the hospital’s organization, the complexity of hospital’s information system, the constraints related to the packaging of drugs by pharmaceutical firms, users training, the complexity of the automated system, and users’ requirements and constraints.
The five parameters influencing human-machine interaction that should be managed to secure automated systems are: understanding the system’s complexity, defining relevant levels of automation, determining human and automated agents’ authority, determining human and automated agents’ autonomy, and understanding the human complexity.
What next?
Handling life-critical systems complexity such as medication delivery activity requires to be equipped with appropriate technology, and to control automation risks. The integration of human-machine principles is crucial to secure automation in hospitals, and to maintain a good balance between automation and human skills.