Background Patient care is provided by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals for high quality and safe patient care. The this to be successful, the team must work synergistically and efficiently communicate. In many hospitals, communication between nursing and pharmacy relies mainly on telephone calls. Telephone calls can be a source of interruptions within the pharmacy nursing operations, and as a result workload increases and the chance of errors raises.

Purpose The aim of this paper was to report the development and implementation of an integrated information system that may reduced non-relevant telephone calls.

Material and methods The research design was based on a quasi-experiment with pre–post testing using the continuous improvement approach. The improvement project was performed using a 6 step method. A survey was conducted in a tertiary hospital to measure the volume and types of telephone calls before and after implementation of the system to evaluate the impact of the new system. In addition, 300 calls were analysed prior and post implementation to measure the impact of the system on call types.

Results In the 2 week measurement period before implementation, pharmacies received 4466 calls. Follow-up calls were the majority. After roll out of the integrated system, there was a significant reduction in the volume of telephone calls. The number of received calls was 2630 calls (p>0.001). Analysis of the 300 calls prior and post implementation showed that the type were as follows: confirmation 40, 20; follow-up 112, 56; IV discontinuations, 1, 6; missing dose 14, 19; PRN medications 13, 19; professional inquiries 21, 116; other 79, 62; and blank 16, 13 calls, respectively. The system reduced unnecessary interruptions and workload.

Conclusion By implementation of an integrated information system, the number of telephone calls was reduced and types of calls were changed to more professional inquiries.

References and/or acknowledgements Andersen SE. Q Safety Health Care 2002;11:19–24.

Beso A, et al. Pharmacy World and Science. Kluwer Academic Publishers 2005;27(3):182–90.

Biron AD, et al. Worldviews on evidence-based nursing. Blackwell Publishing Inc, 2009; 6(2):70–86.

No conflict of interest