IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0247499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time spent by hospital personnel on drug changes: A time and motion study from an in-and outpatient hospital setting

Author

Listed:
  • Joo Hanne Poulsen
  • Lotte Stig Nørgaard
  • Peter Dieckmann
  • Marianne Hald Clemmensen

Abstract

Introduction: Medicines used at Danish public hospitals are purchased through tendering. Together with drug shortage, tendering result in drug changes, known to compromise patient safety, increase medicine errors and to be resource demanding for healthcare personnel. Details on actual resources required in the clinic setting to manage drug changes are unknown. The aim of the study is to explore time spend by hospital personnel in a drug change situation when dispensing medicine to in- and outpatients in a hospital setting in the Capital Region of Denmark. Method: A time and motion study, using direct observation combined with time-registration tools, such as eye-tracking, video recording and manual time tracking. Data were obtained from observing nurses and social and health care assistants with dispensing authority while dispensing or extraditing medicine before and after the implementation of drug changes in two clinical setting; a cardiology ward and a rheumatology outpatient clinic. Results: Hospital personnel at the cardiology inpatient ward spent 20.5 seconds on dispensing a drug, which was increased up to 28.4 seconds by drug changes. At the rheumatology outpatient clinic, time to extradite medicine increased from 8 minutes and 6 seconds to 15 minutes and 36 seconds by drug changes due to tender. Similarly, drug changes due to drug shortage prolonged the extradition time to 16 minutes and 54 seconds. Statistical analysis reveal that drug changes impose a significant increase in time to dispense a drug for both in- and outpatients. Conclusion: Clinical hospital personnel spent significantly longer time on drug change situations in the dispensing of medicine to in- and outpatients in a hospitals. This study emphasizes that implementing drug changes do require extra time, thus, the hospital management should encounter this and ensure that additional time is available for the hospital personnel to ensure a safe drug dispensing process.

Suggested Citation

  • Joo Hanne Poulsen & Lotte Stig Nørgaard & Peter Dieckmann & Marianne Hald Clemmensen, 2021. "Time spent by hospital personnel on drug changes: A time and motion study from an in-and outpatient hospital setting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-16, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0247499
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247499
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247499&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0247499?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dylst, Pieter & Vulto, Arnold & Simoens, Steven, 2011. "Tendering for outpatient prescription pharmaceuticals: What can be learned from current practices in Europe?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 146-152, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sabine Vogler & Valérie Paris & Alessandra Ferrario & Veronika J. Wirtz & Kees Joncheere & Peter Schneider & Hanne Bak Pedersen & Guillaume Dedet & Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar, 2017. "How Can Pricing and Reimbursement Policies Improve Affordable Access to Medicines? Lessons Learned from European Countries," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 307-321, June.
    2. Livio Garattini & Alessandro Curto & Katelijne Vooren, 2015. "Western European markets for biosimilar and generic drugs: worth differentiating," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(7), pages 683-687, September.
    3. Christensen, Elisabeth & Hirsch, Niels Christian & Andersen, Jonas Valbjørn & Ehlers, Lars Holger, 2022. "The analogue substitution model: Introducing competition in the absence of generic substitution in Danish hospitals," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(9), pages 844-852.
    4. Wouters, Olivier J. & Sandberg, Dale M. & Pillay, Anban & Kanavos, Panos G., 2019. "The impact of pharmaceutical tendering on prices and market concentration in South Africa over a 14-year period," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 362-370.
    5. Vogler, Sabine & Zimmermann, Nina & de Joncheere, Kees, 2016. "Policy interventions related to medicines: Survey of measures taken in European countries during 2010–2015," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(12), pages 1363-1377.
    6. Claude Montmarquette & Stéphanie Boulenger & Joanne Castonguay, 2014. "Les risques liés à la création de PHARMA-QUEBEC," CIRANO Project Reports 2014rp-05, CIRANO.
    7. Qian Xing & Wenxi Tang & Mingyang Li & Shuailong Li, 2022. "Has the Volume-Based Drug Purchasing Approach Achieved Equilibrium among Various Stakeholders? Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-22, April.
    8. Lei Chen & Ying Yang & Mi Luo & Borui Hu & Shicheng Yin & Zongfu Mao, 2020. "The Impacts of National Centralized Drug Procurement Policy on Drug Utilization and Drug Expenditures: The Case of Shenzhen, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Gerald J. Pruckner & Thomas Schober, 2018. "Hospitals and the generic versus brand‐name prescription decision in the outpatient sector," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1264-1283, August.
    10. Wouters, Olivier J. & Sandberg, Dale M. & Pillay, Anban & Kanavos, Panos, 2018. "The impact of pharmaceutical tendering on prices and market concentration in South Africa over a 14-year period," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90828, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Kastanioti, Catherine & Kontodimopoulos, Nick & Stasinopoulos, Dionysis & Kapetaneas, Nikolaos & Polyzos, Nikolaos, 2013. "Public procurement of health technologies in Greece in an era of economic crisis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 7-13.
    12. Venetia Qendri & Johannes A. Bogaards & Johannes Berkhof, 2019. "Pricing of HPV vaccines in European tender-based settings," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(2), pages 271-280, March.
    13. Sabine Vogler & Eveli Bauer & Katharina Habimana, 2022. "Centralised Pharmaceutical Procurement: Learnings from Six European Countries," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 637-650, September.
    14. Casanova-Juanes, Julieta & Mestre-Ferrandiz, Jorge & Espín-Balbino, Jaime, 2018. "Competition in the off-patent medicine market in Spain: The national reference pricing system versus the regional system of tendering for outpatient prescription medicines in Andalusia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(12), pages 1310-1315.
    15. Kim Pauwels & Steven Simoens & Minne Casteels & Isabelle Huys, 2015. "Insights into European Drug Shortages: A Survey of Hospital Pharmacists," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-13, March.
    16. Kati Heiskanen & Riitta Ahonen & Risto Kanerva & Pekka Karttunen & Johanna Timonen, 2017. "The reasons behind medicine shortages from the perspective of pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical wholesalers in Finland," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-14, June.
    17. Pedro Pita Barros & Werner B. F. Brouwer & Sarah Thomson & Marco Varkevisser, 2016. "Competition among health care providers: helpful or harmful?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(3), pages 229-233, April.
    18. Vogler, Sabine & Habimana, Katharina & Arts, Danielle, 2014. "Does deregulation in community pharmacy impact accessibility of medicines, quality of pharmacy services and costs? Evidence from nine European countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 311-327.
    19. Curto, Sandro & Ghislandi, Simone & van de Vooren, Katelijne & Duranti, Silvy & Garattini, Livio, 2014. "Regional tenders on biosimilars in Italy: An empirical analysis of awarded prices," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 182-187.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0247499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.