Background Manual replacement of drugs in semi-automatic storage and dispensing systems takes long time for the pharmacy auxiliary staff, particularly for drugs that need some manipulation before their replacement.

Purpose To achieve a reduction in the time required for replacement of drugs in the semi-automatic storage system, Kardex.

Material and methods Assessment and improvement study of the number of daily drugs to replace in Kardex.

Assessment phase: for 26 days, it was decided to evaluate those drugs whose real stock was less than the minimum preset in Kardex. We also analysed whether any of these drugs were involved in any process related to repackaging or division.

We implemented an intervention to optimise the stocks of all drugs in Kardex.

Improvement phase: following the methodology of the evaluation phase, for 26 days after the intervention, we analysed the number of drugs to replace and whether they needed any process related to repackaging or division.

Results The maximum and minimum stocks of 550 different drugs were optimised.

Before the intervention, the number of drugs to replace was 1401 (53.8 daily drugs). After the intervention the number of drugs decreased to 1313 (50.4 daily drugs).

The number of drugs that needed any process related to repackaging or division before their replacement was 685 vs. 575 after the intervention (26.4 vs 22.1 daily drugs). These types of drugs take the most time because they have to be cut, repackaged and bagged.

Time saving was difficult to calculate because it depended on the drug and the stock. It was estimated that the pharmacy auxiliary staff took between 3 and 8 min to replace each different drug. Total time saving was between 10.2 and 27.2 min daily to replace all drugs.

Conclusion Reviewing and updating the stocks reduced the number of drugs that pharmacy auxiliary staff had to replace in Kardex and therefore optimised the replacement time and their workload.

Drugs that must be manipulated before their replacement showed further reduction which involved more time saving.

The results showed the importance of optimising the stocks in the pharmacy store.

References and/or Acknowledgements

1. Juvany-Roig R. Optimización de la calidad del proceso de dispensación de medicamentos en dosis unitaria mediante la implantación del sistema semiautomático Kardex. Farm Hosp 2006;31:38-42

References and/or AcknowledgementsNo conflict of interest.