Using Machine Learning to Predict Early Preparation of Pharmacy Prescriptions at PSMMC - a Comparison of Four Machine Learning Algorithms.

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction is one of the primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI) goal of health care service, and it creates many reasons for implementing research, plans, and innovations to achieve it for a better quality of life. Cutting Patient waiting time would increase patient satisfaction. OBJECTIVE: A healthcare framework has been constructed utilizing a machine learning approach to construct an early predicting preparation model of pharmacy prescriptions and the worthiness of changing the outpatient pharmacy workflow. METHODS: Data sets were retrieved between Januarys and June 2019 from Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, KSA, for all patients who visited the clinics or discharged with pharmacy prescriptions. Included (1048575) instances and composed of (11) attributes. The evaluation criteria to compare the four algorithms were based on precision, Recall, True Positive Rate, False Negative Rate, F-measure, and Area under the curve. RESULTS: Overall, 94.88% of patient's shows at the pharmacy, female represents 58.89% of the data set while male represents 41.1%. RT gives the highest accuracy, with 97.22% in comparison to the other algorithms. CONCLUSION: The suggestion to change the pharmacy workflow is worth increasing patient satisfaction and overall the quality of the care.

Application of aerosol therapy in respiratory diseases in children: A Saudi expert consensus.

The Saudi Pediatric Pulmonology Association (SPPA) is a subsidiary of the Saudi Thoracic Society (STS), which consists of a group of Saudi experts with well-respected academic and clinical backgrounds in the fields of asthma and other respiratory diseases. The SPPA Expert Panel realized the need to draw up a clear, simple to understand, and easy to use guidance regarding the application of different aerosol therapies in respiratory diseases in children, due to the high prevalence and high economic burden of these diseases in Saudi Arabia. This statement was developed based on the available literature, new evidence, and experts' practice to come up with such consensuses about the usage of different aerosol therapies for the management of respiratory diseases in children (asthma and nonasthma) in different patient settings, including outpatient, emergency room, intensive care unit, and inpatient settings. For this purpose, SPPA has initiated and formed a national committee which consists of experts from concerned specialties (pediatric pulmonology, pediatric emergency, clinical pharmacology, pediatric respiratory therapy, as well as pediatric and neonatal intensive care). These committee members are from different healthcare sectors in Saudi Arabia (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Education, and private healthcare sector). In addition to that, this committee is representing different regions in Saudi Arabia (Eastern, Central, and Western region). The subject was divided into several topics which were then assigned to at least two experts. The authors searched the literature according to their own strategies without central literature review. To achieve consensus, draft reports and recommendations were reviewed and voted on by the whole panel.

Using an integrated information system to reduce interruptions and the number of non-relevant contacts in the inpatient pharmacy at tertiary hospital.

Patient care is provided by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals intended for high-quality and safe patient care. Accordingly, the team must work synergistically and communicate efficiently. In many hospitals, nursing and pharmacy communication relies mainly on telephone calls. In fact, numerous studies have reported telephone calls as a source of interruption for both pharmacy and nursing operations; therefore, the workload increases and the chance of errors raises. This report describes the implementation of an integrated information system that possibly can reduce telephone calls through providing real-time tracking capabilities and sorting prescriptions urgency, thus significantly improving traceability of all prescriptions inside pharmacy. The research design is based on a quasi-experiment using pre-post testing using the continuous improvement approach. The improvement project is performed using a six-step method. A survey was conducted in Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC) to measure the volume and types of telephone calls before and after implementation to evaluate the impact of the new system. Beforehand of the system implementation, during the two-week measurement period, all pharmacies received 4466 calls and the majority were follow-up calls. Subsequently of the integrated system rollout, there was a significant reduction (p > 0.001) in the volume of telephone calls to 2630 calls; besides, the calls nature turned out to be more professional inquiries (p > 0.001). As a result, avoidable interruptions and workload were decreased.