Duplication of medicine prescribed for patients with multiple appointments from different clinics, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) / Mohd Zulfakhri Ab. Hamid and Muhammad Fajrul Iman Zainudin

Background: HUSM serves as a community hospital to the public in which patients may be admitted for hospitalisation in subject to in-patient management or treated as outpatient in various specialist clinics such as cardiology clinic, diabetic clinic, oncology clinic, psychiatric clinic and more. Throughout the years, it was noted that patient with several co-morbidities or illnesses, may receive identical prescribed medicine following appointments at different specialist clinics. Objective: Thus, this study evaluated estimated the total cost aroused from waste reduction. In addition, patient also raised. Methodology: In this study, sampling of data was conducted randomly according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Patient’s complete medical history was reviewed and recorded via Duplication Medicine Review form. The data was calculated, tabulated and merged by using SPSS and Microsoft Excel. Result and discussion: The sampling data showed that 28 patients (52%) had duplicated prescription of the identical medicine. Further analysis revealed that Malay male aged from 56-65 who followed up in cardiology clinic were dominating these duplication. Meanwhile, the total cost due to duplicated prescription was found to be RM 8985.04 with Ticlopidine tablet as the most common type of duplicated drug and Alfuzosin tablet as the highest cost of the problems of duplication in prescribing and double dispensing and finally proposed measures in awareness on the consequences of duplication was