Improving Efficiency in Hospital Pharmacy Services: An Integrated Strategy Using the OCTAGON-P Framework and Lean 5S Management Practices
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Hospital pharmacy departments have a critical role in the healthcare system, as they aim to provide excellent patient services while also ensuring cost-effectiveness. Lean methodologies are well-known for improving efficiency and quality in various industries, but their impact on healthcare, particularly in hospital pharmacy settings, has not been thoroughly investigated. Aim This quality improvement (QI) study aimed to assess the impact of implementing the sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain (5S) methodology using the innovative orientation, coordination, training, awareness, governance, observation, normalization, and promotion (OCTAGON-P) framework on the operations of Mediclinic Parkview Hospital (MPAR) Pharmacy in Dubai, UAE. Methods The QI project spanned a period of six weeks, from December 18th, 2023, to January 28th, 2024. Throughout this period, a new novel OCTAGON-P framework's eight crucial elements were methodically integrated. Simultaneously, an extensive preparation process encompassing the five stages of the 5S method was carried out. Results The findings indicated a notable enhancement in organization, orderliness, cleanliness, medication storage, and workspace standardization. The significant improvement of 217% in terms of organization highlighted the effectiveness of resource arrangement. The orderliness of the workspace saw an increase of 800%, indicating a transformation in the systematic organization. Additionally, cleanliness improved by 138%, demonstrating a significant advancement in maintaining a spotless environment. The standardization of processes experienced a boost of 300%, reflecting a solidified approach to consistent operational methods. These refinements resulted in an overall improvement of 90% from the initial baseline of 20% on the 5S checklist scores. Efficiency gains were observed, with outpatient medication retrieval times reduced by 50%, inpatient times by 40%, emergency prescription serving by 16.7%, and pediatric prescription serving by 11%. The inpatient medication return process saw a 67% improvement. Patient counseling time increased by 23.3%, indicating a more patient-centered approach. Prescription verification and medication expiry checks increased by 50% and 200%, respectively, enhancing the quality of care. Inventory management efficiency improved by 36%, and medication label printing time decreased by 70% with the additional label printers. Installing extra medication label printers was done through the OCTAGON-P framework, specifically in the "orientation" and "coordination" phases. These two initial phases focused on leadership's 5S orientation, management support, and securing additional resources. Therefore, the OCTAGON-P framework provided a structured approach that promoted continuous improvement and sustained lean practices. Conclusion This research study presented the remarkable effectiveness of the OCTAGON-P framework in structurally implementing the 5S methodology into hospital pharmacy operations. The findings underscored the potential of lean 5S to enhance and optimize operational efficiency and overall quality within the critical environment of hospital pharmacy settings. Consequently, these improvements can conclusively result in the provision of superior and enhanced patient care, which is truly fundamental and central to the mission and objectives of any healthcare institution.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".