Inventory Management and Analysis of Pharmaceuticals in a Healthcare System

Abstract

In a healthcare system, predominantly in hospital systems, varieties of patient with distinct medical condition visit in search of care and treatment. A typical multispecialty hospital system consists of various departments like cardiology, neurology, gynecology, ophthalmology, etc., for the treatment of various patients with various medical conditions ranging from less critical conditions like fever, infections, fracture, etc., to extremely critical conditions like ischemic heart diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, urinary tract infection, etc. Thus, a hospital system with various departments/specialties appoints various specialized physicians in each domain, and maintains large quantity and variety of physician preference pharmaceutical products in the hospital inpatient pharmacy unit for both scheduled and emergency patients. Depending on the medical condition of patients and specialty, inpatient pharmacy maintains inventory of set of medicines, such as medicines acting on the respiratory tract, cardiovascular medicines, medicines affecting blood, anesthetics, analgesics/antipyretics, anti-allergics and medicines used in anaphylaxis, antidotes, anti-infective items, plasma substitutes, dermatological medicines, diuretics, gastrointestinal medicines, vitamins and minerals, medicines acting on ear, nose and oropharynx which are dispensed to wards, operating theaters, critical care units, and other department within the hospitals. Based on the timeliness of administering the medicines, the set of medicines are classified with the characteristics that the patients requiring medicines without any delay are the most critical patient and so on. Therefore, depending on the criticality of patient condition and specialty/department, set of medicines are classified. The number of patients in a hospital unit at a particular time and their medical condition and reaction to treatment during their length-of-stay is random and changes with time, so the demand of required medicines is stochastic and highly uncertain. Thus, the classification of medicines helps in determining the demand pattern and distribution of each classes and the corresponding inventory strategy for them in order to optimize the hospital inpatient pharmacy inventory so that right quantity of medicines are available at right time considering the constraints and conditions of a typical hospital system. Thus, the characteristics, such as arrival rate, transferal and discharge rates, demand distribution, list of medicines, their administration time, etc., need to be analyzed for which relevant data are collected through observations, hospital information system records and discussion with expert medical personnel and hospital administration of a multispecialty hospital in India. The purpose of the paper is to introduce the applicability of classification of pharmaceuticals based on the patient medical condition within the environment of a hospital inpatient pharmacy for improving the performance of inventory management system in hospitals.