Optimize Outpatient Pharmacy Service Process: Shorten Waiting Time and Improve Patient Satisfaction

Background: To provide scienti�c decision-making basis for managers to improve management methods, so about make outpatient pharmacy service �ow smoother and more e�cient, shorten the waiting time for patients to take medicine and improve patient satisfaction. Methods: Based on the concept of BI, the existing data onto outpatient pharmacy in our hospital were analyzed in depth, and the time distribution rule of prescription dispensing was found. By real-time analysis of the number of patients in the upstream link to the medication withdrawal step, the early warning of the number of patients was realized. Regularity and real-time early warning of the number of medicines users should establish a �exible and e�cient scheduling system for pharmacists, so about maximize the use e�ciency of human resources in outpatient pharmacies. Mean while, rearranged the medicines shelves according to the relevancy analysis of medicines in the same prescription, to reduce the walking distance of staff. Results: Based on the optimization of outpatient service process of large data, the waiting time for patients to take medicine was shortened from more than 15 minutes to less than 10 minutes, satisfaction increased from less than 65% to more than 85%, and the use of personnel was maximized. Conclusions: Through in-depth analysis and deep excavation of the real-time monitoring of outpatient prescription volume, managers can improve the outpatient service process, and through the monitoring and early warning of outpatient prescription volume, employees can be arranged, which is helpful to realize the digital, re�ned and intelligent management of the hospital.


Background
Among the factors in uencing the comprehensive competitiveness of hospitals, more and more attention has been paid to the advanced service concept [1].As one of the important windows of hospitals, outpatient pharmacies provide better medical services for patients, which plays a very important role in gaining the trust in patients and alleviating the relationship between doctors and patients.According to the investigation of a third party company (Beijing Zero Point company) commissioned by the municipal Health and Family Planning Commission and relevant research [2,3,4,5,6 ], the main factors affecting the satisfaction of outpatient pharmacy focus on the several aspects, which are waiting time, medicines price, waiting environment and service attitude.Outpatient pharmacy is the last link patients' consultation.The long waiting time will re ect the level of hospital management and affect patients ' satisfaction with the hospital [7,8,9,10].Especially during peak visits, the smoothness of waiting process and the skill of window staff can affect patients 'mood and the image of the hospital [11] .It was found that the reasons for the long waiting time of taking medicine were the unreasonable space layout of the pharmacy, the uncomplicated process and the unreasonable personnel arrangement by the investigation [12].This paper discusses how to shorten the waiting time of patients' taking medicine and improve the service satisfaction of pharmacy by improving the spatial layout and personnel scheduling of pharmacy .To this end, in February 2019, We introduced the BI concept to conduct in-depth analysis, real-time monitoring and early warning of the existing data, so about establish a exible and e cient scheduling system for pharmacists and maximize the use e ciency of human resources in outpatient pharmacies [13].Also, the position of medicine shelves was adjusted to reduce the distance from deployment personnel and improve work e ciency.The present report is as follows.

Methods
Use BI concept to make outpatient pharmacy service more e cient.By arranging the location of pharmacists and medicines, we can improve work e ciency and make the allocation of human resources and hardware resources more reasonable, so about shorten the waiting time for patients to take medicine, improve patient satisfaction.

Large Data Analysis of Outpatient Prescription Volume
To sort out the prescription time points in the whole year of 2019, nd out the law of peak number of medicines users, the frequency of medicines used and the correlation degree of medicines on the same prescription, and arrange the location of pharmacists and medicines.

Real-time monitoring for outpatient prescription volume
According to the real-time monitoring of the amount of prescription to be dispatched the amount of prescriptions in dispensing and the amount of prescriptions dispatched, the number of dispatching windows and the number of dispatched personnel should be adjusted in time to achieve the optimal dispensing ratio of the number of personnel of both ends of the medicines slide under the condition that the total number of existing pharmacists remains unchanged, minimizing patient waiting for medication.Real time monitoring data onto outpatient prescriptions (Fig. 1).

Statistical method
Applying SSPS21.0 statistical software to calculate the time median (least value largest value) [M(minmax)];The waiting time of patients before and after BI, the waiting time for patients to take medicine at different time after BI application and the distribution of people in different waiting time periods were also counted.

Large Data Analysis of Outpatient Prescription Volume Distribution of Prescription Quantity throughout 2019
The peak period of medicine taking is 10:00-11:00 in the morning and 15:30 − 16:30 in the afternoon, as shown in Fig. 2., we have made corresponding adjustments to the scheduling of personnel (Fig. 3).

Analysis of Medicines Association Degree and Frequency of Medicines Use
Through large data analysis, we found that out of 800 kinds of medicines in outpatient pharmacies, there are more than 120 kinds of medicines with high correlation degree, and more than 150 kinds of medicines appear in prescriptions much more than other varieties.The medicines with high correlation degree are close to each other and the medicines with high frequency are adjusted to the shelves near the dispensing table.

Waiting time and satisfaction before and after BI application
Comparing the data onto four months before and after BI application, the waiting time for patients to take medicine decreased from more than 15 minutes to less than 10 minutes, satisfaction increased from less than 65% to more than 85% (Table 1 The waiting time for patients to take medicine at different time after BI application The peak time of taking the medicine on normal working days is 10:00-11:00 in the morning and 15:30 − 16:30 in the afternoon.The waiting time for taking medicine is long (Table 2).Distribution of population in different waiting periods after BI application 88.93% of patients had access to the medicines within 16 minutes, and 61.11% had access to the medicines within 10 minutes (Table 3).

Real-time Early Warning of Outpatient Prescription Quantity
Generally speaking, the waiting time for patients to take medicines = the time spent in dispensing prescriptions + the waiting time for dispensing medicines + the time for dispensing medicines.That is = the amount of prescriptions in the current stacked pharmacy *the average time spent in dispensing each medicines / the number of dispatches + the average time of dispensing each medicine; the amount of prescriptions in the current stacked pharmacy = the amount of prescriptions to be dispensed + the amount of prescriptions in dispensing; the number of dispatches = (the amount of prescriptions to be dispensed + the amount of prescriptions in dispensing) * the average time of dispensing each medicine /(the waiting time for patients to take medicines -the average time of issuance) A total of 64160 outpatients were selected from our hospital from January 1, 2019 to January 31, 2019.The data were collected from real-time monitoring of outpatient prescriptions.The average time of dispensed each medicines was calculated to be 50 seconds and the average time spent in dispensing each medicines to be 180 seconds.According to our target value, the waiting time for the patient to take medicine is shortened to less than 10 minutes, which is assumed to be 10 minutes .When we open three distribution windows, the number of dispatchers =(the amount of prescription to be dispensed + the amount of prescription to be dispensed)*180/(600 − 50), that is: The number of dispatches = (the amount of prescription to be dispensed + the amount of prescription to be dispensed) /3 The amount of prescriptions dispatched = (the waiting time for patients to take medicines -the average time of dispensing each medicine -the average time of issuance) / time spent in dispensing each medicines * number of dispensers ≈ 22. that is: When the amount of prescriptions dispatched > 2, you need to increase the number of medicines dispensing personnel.

Discussion
At present, the automation of hospital pharmacy and medical information technology have been used in clinical pharmacy services, and the work e ciency and quality of pharmaceutical services had also been improved [14,15].After Lin lewei [16] studied the sale of automation system in his hospital, it was found that the annual return on investment were only 0.15%, which indicated that the average number of outpatient visit per day was less than 4000, and the economic e ciency of using automated dispensing system was not obvious.Because automation can't be spread in a large area in a short period of time, most hospital pharmacies still use people-centered dispensing mode at present.With the deepening of arti cial intelligence and information technology, pharmacies will develop towards intelligence and automation in the future [17,18].So, we have made a thorough analysis of the data available in the outpatient pharmacy and made full use of the intelligent control system to improve the e ciency of pharmacists and shorten the waiting time for patients to take medicine, improve service satisfaction of outpatient pharmacy.
First of all, we comb through the prescription time points of 2019 throughout the year, and nd that the average peak daily occurrence time is (10:00-11:00) in the morning and (15:30 − 16:30) in the afternoon.
For this reason, we make exible shifts according to the peak period, increase the number of staff during peak period, and timely transfer of staff during low period.If the peak period is ahead or wrong, we will check and warn the outpatient prescription volume, and adjust the proportion of dispatchers and dispatchers according to the amount of prescription to be dispatched the amount of prescriptions in dispensing and the amount of prescriptions dispatched, so about make the ratio of dispatchers and dispatchers and, so about shorten the waiting time for patients to take medicines.
Through data analysis, the distribution frequency of each medicines and the correlation degree of each prescription is sorted out, and the medicines are rearranged, so that the medicines with high frequency are closer to the dispensing table and the medicines with high correlation degree are closer to each other, thus reducing the labor intensity of dispensing by pharmacists and reducing the walking steps of dispensing each prescription.

Conclusions
Through more than a year of practice, we have now achieved that the average waiting time of patients has been reduced from more than 15 minutes to less than 10 minutes ,satisfaction increased from less than 65% to more than 85%,that with the total number of pharmacists unchanged, and this is still on the basis of the increasing number of outpatient clinics in hospitals.
In the future, we will continue to use information technology to sort out Pharmacists' work e ciency curve according to each time point of the process of taking medicines.We will learn about each Pharmacists ' work e ciency area so as to arrange personnel more reasonably, improve work e ciency and save more time.At the same time, we will continue to strengthen pharmaceutical personnel training in order to improve overall quality of the pharmaceutical personnel and reduce errors.
It is also possible to optimize the operation process and strengthen the division of labor and cooperation among staff members by adding pharmacy services such as auditing posts, medicines consulting o ce and safety knowledge publicity, so about keep them in good working condition [19].Improve the quality and quality of pharmacy service, so about improve patient satisfaction.

Figures Figure 1 Flow 2 Average daily prescriptions for 2019 Figure 3 Average
Figures ).

Table 2
The waiting time for patients to take medicine at different time after BI application