Immunization program continues to face challenges in Pakistan. Under 5 years child mortality rate is quite higher than the rates in developed countries. As per the survey of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (2010–2011) Pakistan’s routine immunization coverage does not meet the optimal routine immunization rate of more than 80%. (WHO Jan 2013). So Pharmacy department embarked upon the project of acquiring the immunization service in the hospital and re-align it as per current challenges and strategic planning for expansion and community accessibility. Until April 2013, Immunization Center in AKUH was run by LHVs and overseen by Nursing services, Family Medicine and Paeds ID (Infectious Disease) specialty combined. From April onwards the services were transformed into Pharmacist-Run One Window Immunization services. The main reasons of acquiring are described below: We identified that patient had to come across multiple, lengthy steps involving different counters (i.e. nursing review, registration desk, pharmacy, administration room). The process was not only time consuming but also created unnecessary duplication of work. Moreover, manual working was error prone like marking wrong vaccine, wrong dose or even wrong patient etc. As a change, the process was simplified cutting down multiple steps, reduced waiting time from 40 min (pre) to 15 min (post) and proper screening mechanism for vaccines by a trained pharmacist was implemented. The new concept of Pharmacist-Run One Window service resulted in zero error/near miss incidences from April until August 2013 with a drastic increase in customer satisfaction as revealed by quarterly satisfaction survey and many written/verbal appreciations. Pharmacists can promote proper immunization by identifying patients in need of immunization, gathering immunization histories, encouraging use of vaccine profiles, issuing vaccination records to patients , preventing immunologic drug interactions and screening patients for immunization needs.
Adapted from Pharmacy Newsletter, September 2013
http://portal.aku.edu/pharmacy/Pharmacy%20Newsletter%20Sep-13%28final%29.pdf
Immunization program continues to face challenges in Pakistan. Under 5 years child mortality rate is quite higher than the rates in developed countries. As per the survey of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (2010–2011) Pakistan’s routine immunization coverage does not meet the optimal routine immunization rate of more than 80%. (WHO Jan 2013). So Pharmacy department embarked upon the project of acquiring the immunization service in the hospital and re-align it as per current challenges and strategic planning for expansion and community accessibility. Until April 2013, Immunization Center in AKUH was run by LHVs and overseen by Nursing services, Family Medicine and Paeds ID (Infectious Disease) specialty combined. From April onwards the services were transformed into Pharmacist-Run One Window Immunization services. The main reasons of acquiring are described below: We identified that patient had to come across multiple, lengthy steps involving different counters (i.e. nursing review, registration desk, pharmacy, administration room). The process was not only time consuming but also created unnecessary duplication of work. Moreover, manual working was error prone like marking wrong vaccine, wrong dose or even wrong patient etc. As a change, the process was simplified cutting down multiple steps, reduced waiting time from 40 min (pre) to 15 min (post) and proper screening mechanism for vaccines by a trained pharmacist was implemented. The new concept of Pharmacist-Run One Window service resulted in zero error/near miss incidences from April until August 2013 with a drastic increase in customer satisfaction as revealed by quarterly satisfaction survey and many written/verbal appreciations. Pharmacists can promote proper immunization by identifying patients in need of immunization, gathering immunization histories, encouraging use of vaccine profiles, issuing vaccination records to patients , preventing immunologic drug interactions and screening patients for immunization needs.
Adapted from Pharmacy Newsletter, September 2013
http://portal.aku.edu/pharmacy/Pharmacy%20Newsletter%20Sep-13%28final%29.pdf