Studying the Efficiency of Waiting Time in Outpatient Pharmacy

In general, the pharmacy is the last department to be visited for outpatient in the hospitals, and therefore its efficiency is directly linked to patients’ satisfactions and more important the reputation of the entire hospital. The study here is based on Medical City that is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It serves patients from all over Saudi Arabia. The aim of the study is to improve the efficiency of waiting time of outpatient pharmacy based on the problems that have been observed using management quality tools and techniques. After analyzing the data for the current situation, then trying to propose changes for improvement in system efficiency. Results showed that by proposing automated waiting system with automated prescriptions, patient categorization, reduce the unclaimed prescriptions, and modify the pharmacy's layout. All of that will help in reducing the waiting time as well as increasing the patients' satisfaction which will lead to improve the pharmacy's efficiency. From reviewing the literature, it concludes that applying management quality tools and techniques will tremendously improve the quality of services in healthcare systems. The statistical analysis presented shows some outliers points when serving patients which were studied and recommendations were proposed. This is new approach to enhance the quality of healthcare management and leads to increase in the efficiency of the outpatient pharmacies.