03-08-2016, 11:50 AM
Abstract—Large patients’ queues at pharmacies and hospitals are
a problem that faces the supposedly smooth and healthy environment
in United Arab Emirates. As this sometimes leads to dissatisfaction
from visiting patients, we tried to solve this problem with additional
beneficial functions by developing the Hospital-Pharmacy
Management System. The primary purpose of this research is to
develop a system that joins the databases of a hospital and a
pharmacy together for a better integrated system that provides a
better coherent working environment. Three methods are used to
design the system. These methods are detailed literature review, an
extensive feasibility study and surveys for doctors, hospital IT
managers and End-users. Interviews and surveys with related
stakeholders were done to depict system’s requirements; design and
prototype. The prototype illustrates system’s features and its client
and server architecture. The system has a mobile application for
visiting patients to, mainly, keep track of their prescriptions and
access to their personal information. The server side allows doctors to
submit the prescriptions online to pharmacists who will process them.
INTRODUCTION
URRENTLY, patients’ queues are a major issue in many
hospitals in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Most of the
times, especially during the busy working hours, patients are
crowded in front of the pharmacy waiting for turn in the queue
to take their prescription. This could lead to patients’
dissatisfaction and a stressful work environment for the
pharmacists. In order to overcome these problems, this system
will provide functions and modules to result in a better
comfortable experience for the visitors. Also, it will allow the
pharmacists to work in a relaxed environment away from the
long demanding queues of patients. The concept of hospital
pharmacy is widely spread in UAE. It is a pharmacy that is
usually found within the location of its associated hospital.
They are mostly concerned with providing medications for
patients visiting the hospital
Doctors Interviews
Doctors in the first hospital prefer the new system due to
the fact that it saves time and makes prescribing medicines
quicker and more efficient. These are the same arguments
doctors from the second hospital agree with, but with the
emphasis on having teams of nurses that are qualified in
helping and assisting the doctors. Doctors from the third
hospital found that using the option of checking the
availability of medicine is very helpful while working, and
thought that facilitates the prescription process. In contrast,
they agreed that letting the patients order medicines from their
apps, even with prescription, is an invalid move and cannot be
applied.