Using statistical process control chart techniques to ensure quality of care in pharmacy department of a hospital

To ensure high quality pharmaceutical care in a 1200-bed teaching hospital in southern Taiwan, patient-centered performance indicators, developed based on medication-use indicators, and pharmacy operational indicators were routinely monitored using sequential detection analysis of control charts. A sequential control chart approach was proposed to automatically inspect the outliers at the last time point and email each responsible pharmacist their outlier control chart for discussion. Forty indicators were used to measure the quality of pharmaceutical care. Using sequential detection, the outliers of the indicators beyond threshold and trend were examined using deviation and threshold criteria. A summary report showed that there was no difference between both types of indicators, and that they both improved each year.