Kong KK, Ong SC, Ooi GS, Hassali MA. Measuring the proportion of time spent on work activities of clinical pharmacists using work sampling technique at a public hospital in Malaysia.
Pharm Pract (Granada) 2021;
19:2469. [PMID:
34621454 PMCID:
PMC8456338 DOI:
10.18549/pharmpract.2021.3.2469]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2021] [Accepted: 08/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Background:
The clinical pharmacy service to the ward was established in 2005 in
Malaysia, as the number of pharmacists working in the public service sector
began to grow. Yet, there has been little local research done on reporting
the range of work activities of clinical pharmacists and the amount of time
that they spent on their work activities.
Objective:
This study aimed to identify the range of work activities of clinical
pharmacists by observation and to estimate the proportion of time spent on
different work activities by using the work sampling technique.
Methods:
The time spent by clinical pharmacists on various activities was measured
using the work sampling technique over 30 working days. The work activities
of clinical pharmacists were pre-identified and customized into an activity
checklist. Two observers were placed at the study site and took turns
recording the activities performed by the clinical pharmacists by following
a randomly generated observation schedule.
Results:
1,455 observations were made on five clinical pharmacists with a total of
3493 events recorded. Overall, clinical pharmacists spent 78.8%
(n=2751) of their time providing clinical services whereas 12.3%
(n=433) of their time was spent on non-clinical activities. They were found
to be idle from work for 8.9% of the time. There was no difference in
bed occupancy rate in the study site regardless of the presence of the
observer (p=0.384). Clinical pharmacists were found to report a higher
average daily cumulative work unit of 9.8 (SD=4.3) when under observation
compared to an average daily cumulative work unit of 6.5 (SD=4.6) when no
observer was present (p=0.005).
Conclusions:
The results revealed that clinical pharmacists spent a significant amount of
time on non-clinical work. Their responsibilities with non-clinical work
should be properly taken care of so they can allocate more time to providing
patient care.
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