Drive through pharmacy: a study of dispensing efficiency and patient’s convenient at Outpatient Pharmacy, Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim

The study of medication dispensing efficiency and convenience of patients with the presence of drive thru system in out-patient of Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim (HSAH) has been explored. The objective of this study is to observe the effectiveness of the drive thru system of outpatient as an alternative time saving method for patients to get their medication and then- satisfaction to the system compared to die normal coimter system in Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim. The focus of this study is to relate the hospital services such as die time spent waiting by patients for receiving prescribed medications. Our study was done at Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim, Sungai Petani which also owns a drive-thru counter itself. The study subjects, the visitors who come to the drive-thru pharmacy counter of Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim, Sungai Petani, were chosen randomly and were given a set of questionnaire to answer. This study is important to be conducted as to obtain a statistic from the survey done to the population. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 70 patients randomly from drive-thru counter that had used the outpatient pharmacy service, HSAH using a constructed survey form. The duration of the process started from October 2016 to February 2017. The result of our findings can be concluded that the system as a whole is beneficial to the patients besides having a good and satisfying service. Although the short time taken to wait before receiving their medications and their satisfaction do not correlate, it is agreeable that so far the patients are satisfied with the time spent to wait before receiving their medication. In a nutshell, the study had given an expected result in which the system helps in saving time among patients and clinical employees whilst having a satisfying service towards the patients.