A simulation study of two hospital based pharmacy dispensary systems

In this paper we present the preliminary findings of a discrete event simulation study of two hospital pharmacy dispensary systems. In close collaboration with service managers and other pharmacists, we studied the out-patient prescription dispensing systems of Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals, both part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Having established the face validity of the model, we estimated the likely impact of changes in prescription workload in terms of mean turnaround times and proportion of prescriptions completed within 45 minutes. Finally, we sought to investigate the likely impact on the same metrics of removing the strict first-in first-out policy of handing out prescriptions to patients in one of the two hospitals. Contrary to expectations, the simulations suggest that removing such rule will most likely not result in a markedly improved service performance.