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Returned medications management: The way toward reducing medications waste and improve the recycling process, single-center, cross-sectional study.
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| Author:
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ANJUM NAEEM, ABDULLAH M. ALZAHRANI, ALI F.ALWADIE, SHAHJAHAN SHAH, KHALID ALBOGAMI
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| Abstract:
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This study aimed to determine the returned medication quantity, source, causes and estimate the actual cost savings from the recycling of unused returned items. It was four weeks cross-sectional, observational study conducted at a single-center tertiary hospital. During the study period, a total of 28860 items were received by the inpatient pharmacy from different hospital wards. The medication with the highest frequency was docusate tablets (n=90, 13%), followed by vancomycin Inj. (n=82, 12%). The average time required to receive unused medications was 7.5 days. The number of recyclable items was 27043 (94.6%), while non-recyclable medications were accounted for 1843(6.4%). The entire cost of returned medications throughout the study period was approximately SR 345,912. This study has illustrated that drug discontinuation, discharges of the patients, and misuse of the missing dose request were the most cause of returning medications to the inpatient pharmacy. Recycling unused returned medication is an efficient method for saving costs and decreasing waste. Improvement of the communication between the different departments and the utilization of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) functions may reduce return medications.
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| Keyword:
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Returned medications; Cost-saving of returned medications; Causes of returned medications.
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| EOI:
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-
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| DOI:
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https://doi.org/10.31838/ijpr/2021.13.02.055
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| Download:
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Request For Article
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