Pilot study: cold chain drug return and its’ management in Outpatient Pharmacy of Hospital Putrajaya

There is increasing concern regarding the quantity and cost of cold chain drug return. The reason patients return the drug to Outpatient pharmacy in Hospital Putrajaya have been explored such as change of regimen and medications that reaching expiration date. The quantity and cost drug return are continuously increase by year and it will lead to money wastage. The study focuses on management of cold chain drug return. The way to solve this problem were giving counselling to patients, providing dispensing card so that we can monitor their balance medication at home and promotion of drug return by pamphlet and poster. The aim of this study is to determine wastage of cold chain drug return to Outpatient pharmacy of Hospital Putrajaya. There is no sampling was done as all data were obtained entirely from the system. However, our study only involve data from Outpatient Department of Hospital Putrajaya. Data collection of cost and quantity were obtained from the Drug Return Folder Farmasi and Fisicien System Database. The reason of cold chain drug return all data obtained from the checklist form of drug return by patient. All data was analysed and converted into bar chart and pie chart by using Microsoft Excel. Expectedly, the wastage of cold chain drug return was decrease 10% which is RM 1699.80 from October 2015 to February 2016. As conclusion, after distributing educational and mini counselling, we found that less drug were returned. This most probably due to patient understanding on how to manage cold chain medicine. This may include in adherence in taking medication where patient have enough supply for the duration of treatment.