A study on effectiveness of online indentation of medicines in reducing the medication turnaround time in tertiary care institute

Background: Timely supply of drugs in time to the inpatients is a good indicator to determine the healthcare quality. The time between the doctor prescribing medicines and delivering the drugs to the concerned nursing unit is the turnaround time. The process of drugs being delivered from central stores to nursing units involves personnel from various departments who need coordination among them to deliver the medicines in time. Reduction in Turnaround time of medication will reduce morbidity and mortality and improve the healthcare quality. Aim: To compare the Turnaround time of medication to patients with online indenting of drugs. Methodology: It is a prospective comparative study between manual and online indenting of drugs. It was conducted for a period of 2 months in August and September 2021. Sample of 252 medical indents were studied. The data collection form was designed and validated based on the process of indenting of drugs from the wards and ICUs and the observations were noted down. The collected data was analyzed using MS Excel and SPSS Software. Results: Total number of medical indents studied was 252. The average Turnaround time observed in manual indenting of medicines from wards is 1hr 18 mins and from ICUs is 41mins. The average Turnaround time observed in Online indenting of medicines from wards is 51mins ( p value- 0.017) and ICUs is 34mins(P value-0.026). Conclusion: The online indentation of drugs reduces the cumbersome process of paperwork and saves a lot of time which reduces the morbidity, mortality and improves healthcare quality.