Development and influential factor analysis of pharmacy outpatient departments in 714 Chinese tertiary healthcare institutions / 中国药房

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE To investigate the basic situation of developing pharmacy outpatient departments in Chinese tertiary medical institutions and analyze the influencing factors. METHODS The research targeted the pharmacy outpatient department managers of hospitals and conducted a survey through Sojump in March 2023. Various independent variables were selected from the hospital’s own characteristics， the management of the pharmacy outpatient departments， and the construction of the pharmacist team for Logistic and linear regression analysis， with the aim of separately analyzing the factors influencing the establishment of pharmacy outpatient departments and the factors affecting the total number of patients served by these departments throughout the year 2022. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS A total of 1 304 medical institutions of different levels nationwide participated in this survey， with 714 tertiary hospitals. Among the tertiary hospitals， 377 （52.80%） had established pharmacy outpatient departments， including 321 grade-A tertiary hospitals， 48 grade-B tertiary hospitals and 8 other tertiary hospitals. The 377 tertiary hospitals collectively operated 1 739 pharmacy outpatient departments， covering 19 specialized fields， with the highest proportion found in the cardiovascular field （including anticoagulation） at 16.45%. Tertiary hospitals in North China， Central China， East China and South China regions had more pharmacy outpatient departments. The establishment of pharmacy outpatient departments was found to be influenced by tertiary grade-B status （P＝0.010） and the annual outpatient volume of the hospital （P＝0.008）， although the impact was relatively small. The factors influencing the number of patients served by pharmacy outpatient departments were the annual outpatient volume of the hospital （P＝0.042） and the number of pharmacists engaged in clinical pharmacy work （P＝0.004）. The proportion of tertiary hospitals in China that have established pharmacy outpatient departments is insufficient. It is necessary to further accelerate the construction of pharmacy outpatient departments and appropriately expand the talent pool of hospital pharmacy teams based on the needs of pharmacy outpatient departments and patients， in order to meet the requirements of medical practice and patient care.