Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY INDICATORS IN HOSPITAL AND CLINICAL PHARMACY SERVICES IN THE DISTRICT OF THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Aswathy T. D.* and Jayakrishnan S. S.

ABSTRACT

Hospital pharmacy may be defined as the practice of pharmacy in a hospital setting including its organizationally related facilities. It may also be defined as department of hospital wherein procurement, storage, compounding, manufacturing, packaging, controlling, assaying, dispensing, distribution & monitoring of medication are performed by legally qualified, professionally competent pharmacist. Hospital pharmacy must follow certain principles and standards for best practices, growth and development. Our aim was to study whether the hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram district adhere to Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) guideline or not. The study was carried out in hospital pharmacies in Thiruvananthapuram district which include Govt. Medical Colleges, General Hospitals, Taluk Hospitals, Community Health Centres and Primary Health Centres. The investigator visited those hospitals and explained the objective of the study to the concerned person of the respective hospital. The study was conducted in the respective hospital after obtaining permission from the concerned person. Characteristics of hospitals such as facilities, personnel, organization structure, training, complaints and recall, medicine recall, procurement and inventory management, distribution frequency of drug requirements, prescription handling, dispensing, storage and documentation system were studied by quality standard indicators. It was found from the study that implementation of quality indicators in hospital and clinical pharmacy services were quite poor. To improve the standard of quality indicators in Hospital and Clinical Pharmacy services, immediate necessary changes should be made to the current system by concerned regulatory authorities. It is also necessary to make changes in the attitude of pharmacists’ towards his professional duties and ethics.

Keywords: Hospital Pharmacy, Clinical Pharmacy, Quality Indicators, Standards.