Background Certain drugs that need special follow-up are dispensed from hospital pharmacies in some countries. Due to the increasing number of drugs included in these programmes, their economic impact and the growing number of patients, it is necessary to find new ways to optimise resources while improving pharmaceutical care. With the help of new technologies and new software, an appointment based pharmacy care model (ABM) for outpatients can become a challenge and a valid choice in hospital pharmacies.

Purpose To implement and evaluate the results of changing from a queuing model (QM) to an ABM for outpatients attending a tertiary hospital pharmacy.

Material and methods All outpatients treated at the pharmaceutical care unit since inclusion of the ABM in the hospital (May 2015) to the present (September 2015) were included in a retrospective data collection analysis through records of the dating and dispensing software.

Results Pharmacy workflow was completely redesigned, staff was formed, and patients were informed during the previous month about the new ABM model. Staff numbers were increased with one administrative assistant.

Analysis of the data showed a baseline of 703 outpatients (range 660–734) coming to collect their medications at the hospital pharmacy weekly (monthly 2956 (range 2638–3572)).

The mean numbers of patients coming by ABM during the first 5 months post implantation were 764, 1373, 1751, 1985 and 2325, respectively, corresponding to 21%, 47%, 63%, 75% and 81%, respectively, of total attended patients.

There was an upward tendency in the percentage of patients treated by the ABM with a reduction in patients remaining in the QM system, and although each month the increase was lower it has not yet flat-lined.

Of the patients who had an appointment, 86% came to collect their medicines on their scheduled appointment, the number remaining fairly constant throughout the study period (range 86–87%) and thus so did the percentage of patients who failed to turn up for their appointment (14%); the reason for this failure is unclear and a matter of future study.

Conclusion Pharmacy workflow redesign allowed implementation of an ABM for outpatients in a hospital pharmacy. 5 months after its implementation, 81% of patients came to the pharmacy care by ABM.

References and/or Acknowledgements outpatient pharmacy staff.

No conflict of interest.