Caracterización de la práctica de la atención farmacéutica en instituciones hospitalarias de Santiago de Cuba / Characterization of the pharmaceutical care practice in hospital institutions located in Santiago de Cuba

Introducción: el panorama de los países de América Latina en la actualidad revela que a nivel hospitalario hay una adopción del concepto de atención farmacéutica, sin embargo, la práctica demuestra que se mantiene el centro de la actividad en el medicamento y su dispensación. El uso de indicadores fácilmente mensurables que permitan conocer las características de las funciones relacionadas con este ejercicio, puede constituirse en una forma de constatar esta realidad.Objetivo: caracterizar la práctica de la atención farmacéutica en instituciones hospitalarias.Métodos: se realizó una investigación retrospectiva que incluyó los años 2005-2007, en instituciones hospitalarias de Santiago de Cuba. Se establecieron indicadores a partir de los criterios normados para la actividad de atención farmacéutica en el Manual de normas y procedimientos de farmacias hospitalarias y criterios establecidos en la literatura internacional. Se partió de los registros informados de dicha actividad a la Dirección Provincial de Salud.Resultados: los indicadores reflejaron que se realizan más las actividades de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico (algunos indicadores relacionados superiores al 70 por ciento), que las de educación sanitaria (no alcanza nunca más del 5 por ciento) e información sobre medicamentos a pacientes y profesionales (no alcanza nunca más del 13 por ciento); pero no se desarrollan de forma normalizada, ni continua. Además, las intervenciones farmacéuticas son bien aceptadas por los equipos de salud (más del 70 por ciento de aceptación), sin embrago, no son suficientes en función del número de problemas relacionados con los medicamentos detectados.Conclusiones: el ejercicio de la atención farmacéutica no es una práctica habitual del profesional farmacéutico en las instituciones estudiadas y no se desarrolla de forma normalizada; esto indica la necesidad de establecer estrategias para el perfeccionamiento de este ejercicio profesional

Introduction: the panorama of the Latin American countries at present shows that at hospital setting, the concept of pharmaceutical care is adopted, but the practice proves that it continues being focused in drugs and dispensation. The use of easy-to-measure indications to find out the characteristics of the functions related to this exercise may represent the confirmation these realities. Objective: to characterize the practice of pharmaceutical care in hospital institutions. Methods: a retrospective research study was carried out and covered years 2005 through 2007 in hospital institutions of Santiago de Cuba. Some indicators were set on the basis of the criteria for the pharmaceutical care activity included in the Manual de normas y procedimientos de farmacias hospitalarias and of the criteria found in the international literature. The reported registers of pharmaceutical care sent to the provincial health division were also taken into consideration. Results: the indicators revealed that the pharmacotherapeutic follow-up activities (some indicators over 70 percent) exceeded those of health education (barely reaching 5 percent) and information about drugs for patients and health professionals (never over 13 percent); however, they are not either standardized or permanent. Additionally, the pharmaceutical interventions were well-accepted by the health teams (over 70 percent acceptance rate) but they are still insufficient to deal with the number of problems connected with the detected medications. Conclusions: the implementation of the pharmaceutical care is not a regular and standardized practice by the pharmaceutical professional in the studied institutions. The aforementioned points to the need of drawing up strategies to improve this professional endeavor

Architecture of a Diary System for Inpatient Pharmaceutical Services / 医薬品情報学

<b>Objective: </b>As part of the revision on remuneration for medical services in 2012, a new system has been implemented to allow an additional fee for inpatient pharmaceutical services to be added to the basic hospitalization fee.<br><b>Methods: </b>We at Kitasato University Kitasato Institute Hospital satisfied all institutional requirements for the new system and were preparing to introduce it from April 2012; however, there was concern about the increased workload due to the additional work of preparing diaries for pharmaceutical services used in calculating the additional fee.<br><b>Results: </b>We therefore developed a database titled Diary System for Inpatient Pharmaceutical Services for the preparation and management of diaries.  This system allows pharmacists from various divisions to enter data simultaneously and realizes the unified management of records of services performed at various places in the pharmacy.<br><b>Conclusions: </b>Since entered data are automatically reflected in the inpatient pharmaceutical service diary and the monthly summary, an advantage compared to paper diaries in terms of efficiency may be expected.  Furthermore, the monthly summary of the number of service hours by ward and service type may also be used for service analysis.