• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 2015

Background: The recent change in pharmaceutical education system following the paradigm shift to patient-oriented pharmacy service requires an in-depth discussion to reorganize a future direction and establish a basis for maximizing social values of community pharmacy service. Objective: This study was conducted to review the current status of community pharmacy service provision in Korea based on published literatures. Methods: The electronic databases of National Digital Science Library and Electronic National Assembly Library were used to search the journal articles and dissertation papers. A search term "community pharmacy" was used and the published period was limited to papers published after year 2001, when the legal separation of prescribing and dispensing was implemented. Relevant study reports were also searched manually. Information about pharmacy service provision and study outcomes were retrieved from the selected papers, and classified by predefined individual service scope. Results: A total 33 papers reporting services provided by community pharmacies were selected (journal article 11, dissertation paper 17, and study report 5). Pharmacy services identified in these papers could be classified into prescription dispensing service, pharmaceutical care service, self medication service, other products service, and health promotion service. Twenty papers reported prescription dispensing services, three papers reported pharmaceutical care service, and only two papers reported health promotion service. Current community pharmacy services are highly dependent on prescription drugs while expanded services such as pharmaceutical care and health promotion are peripheral. Most prevalent research topic was medication counseling service (18 papers), reflecting that community pharmacists generally consider it to be the most important and fundamental service. Overall, current pharmacy services are very limited and focus on prescription dispensing service. Conclusion: At this point of time requiring expansion and quality improvement of community pharmacy services, we suggest further lively discussion to strengthen pharmacist's functional identity and set conditions for providing socially expected services.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2017

Objective: Seoul City has implemented the Safe Pharmacy in 2013. This study aimed to ascertain the success factors of the smoking cessation service of the Safe Pharmacy. Methods: The data for the smoking cessation registration cards were obtained from the pharmacies which participated in 2014 Safe Pharmacy. The sample included 289 smokers in 6 districts who participated at least one sessions of smoking cessation service. the service included both behavioral intervention and nicotine replacement therapy. In order to identify the effectiveness of the smoking cessation service, logistic regression analysis was used. The dependent variable was the success of quitting smoking at the 4th week. The independent variables included age, sex, employment, chronic disease, district, smoking amount, registration path, supporters for quitting smoking and number of service sessions. Results: Fifty eight point eight percent of the sample successfully quit smoking at the 4th week. Unemployment, higher smoking amount, and less service sessions were negatively related to the success of quitting smoking. There were differences in the success rate across districts. Age, sex, chronic disease, registration path, and anti-smoking supporters were not related to the success rate. Conclusion: Pharmacy can be an effective community resource for smoking cessation. Factors that could increase the effectiveness of smoking cessation service of the Safe Pharmacy and possible ways to enhance the participation of pharmacies in smoking cessation services were also discussed.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.282-287
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• 2014

Objective: Objective of this study was to investigate community pharmacy-based pharmaceutical care accessibility in Korea. Survey on the current pharmaceutical care service provision was performed by PM2000 XE, a real-time pharmacy manager program, operated by Korea Pharmaceutical Information Center beginning November 4, 2013 until December 6, 2013 towards all community pharmacies throughout the nation which use the program. Method: The survey questionnaire consisted of four sections: pharmacy type, time-based accessibility, item-based accessibility, and spatial accessibility for non-prescription drugs. Results: Number of pharmacy responded to the survey was 331, and size of the responding pharmacy was mostly medium-scale (66.47%) with 30-99 prescription fillings a day. Proportion of pharmacy with opening hour of 12 hours or longer was only 53.77% and it was less than 25% during saturdays and holidays. Item-based accessibility was generally acceptable for prescription and non-prescription drugs, medical devices, and health supplements. However, spatial accessibility for non-prescription drugs was problematic because only one quarter of the drugs was displayed over the counter, and most of the drugs were behind the counter so that customers could not reach out. Conclusion: Based on the survey result, current situation for accessibility of pharmaceutical care service in Korea is concluded inadequate and therefore needs multidimensional efforts to improve accessibility of the service at national level such as Korea Pharmaceutical Association and Ministry of Health and Welfare.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.283-287
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• 2008

Drug identification service and other drug-related query service are becoming increasingly important in hospital pharmacy. The goal of this research was to investigate current situation of the service in hospital pharmacy, which recently implemented the services as part of provision of advanced hospital pharmacy service in order to assure national health improvement. We investigated the report performed from November 2006 through April 2007 in a university hospital located in Daegu, Korea. Number of drug identification service performed was 81 cases during the first three months period (period I), but it increased to 222 cases during the second three months period (period II), which suggested that the service was welcomed by medical staff in the hospital. Time to process each case was about 30 minutes in the period I while it was only 16 minutes in the period II. Proportion of the unidentifiable cases remained at about 25% during the entire period, which suggests that the system for the identification task appears to have some limitations such as unsatisfactory support from the Korea Pharmaceutical Association, laws, and regulations. A vast majority of drug-related queries were mostly from physicians (60.5%) followed by nurses and pharmacists. Time to process each drug-related query was 10.6 minutes in the period I while it was 6.9 minutes in the period II. Queries answered immediately were about 70% of all queries in the period I, but increased to about 85% in the period II.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 2019

Background: Although the importance of pharmaceutical care service has been growing to meet the needs of customers with the improvement of clinical and humanistic outcomes, there was not a systematic strategy to promote research in Korea. The aim of this study was to suggest the core agendas for pharmaceutical care services research and development (R&D) considering priorities. Methods: Based on desk researches, we developed R&D agendas for the needs of improving pharmaceutical care services in the area of institution, community, and public health. To determine the priority of agendas in developing pharmaceutical care service, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) analysis was performed by the 14 experts. Criteria and subcriteria were assessed for significance by pairwise comparisons. Then, agendas were evaluated for importance according to each subcriteria, and rank ordered considering the weight calculated by multiplying the importance scores of the criteria and the subcriteria. Results: We derived 25 agendas including 13 for institutional pharmaceutical care service, 8 for community pharmaceutical care service, and 4 for public-health related pharmaceutical care service. AHP model was constructed based on 4 criteria and 8 subcriteria by a hierarchical structure. From the AHP survey, the 'Development of pharmaceutical care service for metabolic and chronic disease' agenda accounted for the highest priority. Conclusion: We have developed the R&D agendas of the pharmaceutical care service which should be promoted. The results should be utilized by the government to nationally support the development of the standards and relevant regulations related to pharmaceutical care services in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.272-281
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• 2014

Objective: The provision of pharmaceutical care service in compliance with good pharmacy practice (GPP) standards is important, but there is lack of studies to investigate the barriers that significantly hinder community pharmacies in Korea from adhering to the standards. This study was aimed to identify the major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service in compliance with the proposed pharmacy practice standards which have been developed based on the GPP standards recommended jointly by WHO and FIP. Methods: Questionnaires reviewed by the expert committee were posted for 32 days on the website which is most frequently accessed by community pharmacists. The respondents completed them by checking the scores (Max=5, Min=1) for major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service focusing on patient information management and drug use review process in prescription fillings. The answered scores were automatically collected using online data processing. Mean differences between scored data were assessed by ANOVA. Results: Total 321 pharmacists participated in the survey. Results indicated that 'difficulty of diagnosis identification' (m=3.92, SD=1.21), 'lack of time' (m=3.48, SD=1.22) and 'lack of updated clinical information' (m=3.17, SD=1.10) were the major barriers to provision of pharmaceutical care service in patient information management. The main barriers to drug utilization review were 'lack of time' (m=3.32, SD=1.21), 'lack of updated clinical information' (m=3.11, SD=1.17), and 'negative feedbacks or refusals from prescribers' (m=3.00, SD=1.38). There were significant differences among the groups by location, employed number of pharmacists and acceptability to the proposed GPP standards. Conclusion: Difficulties in managing patient clinical information and lack of time were found to be the major barriers in providing pharmaceutical care services in community pharmacies in Korea. Further research is recommended to determine ways to reduce these barriers in order to provide quality pharmaceutical care service that is in compliance with the internationally recognized GPP guidelines.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2010

Aprepitant is a substance P/neurokinin-1 (NK1)-receptor antagonist that was approved in 2003 for prevention of CINV. In addition, updated anti-emetic guidelines that include the aprepitant regimen have been published by NCCN and ASCO. However there is scarce clinical data in Korea. The prospective study was performed to evaluate the prevention of high dose cisplatin induced nausea and vomiting in all patients who started high-dose cisplatin-based chemotherapy at our hospital. We checked the nausea severity and vomiting episodes by calling patients within 4 to 5 days after chemotherapy. The retrospective study was performed to compare the prevention of CINV in solid tumor patients who switched their anti-emesis regimen from the standard regimen to the aprepitant regimen. In aprepitant regimen, aprepitant was added to the same anti-emetic regimen used during previous cycles. We checked the nausea, vomiting grades and adverse events in electronic medical records (EMR). In prospective study, 195 patients were included in the analysis. 88.2% of patients achieved a complete response (no emesis and no rescue therapy). In retrospective study, 54 patients were reviewed. With aprepitant regimen, nausea and vomiting grades were improved in 22 patients (40.7%) and in 9 patients (16.7%), respectively. Compared with standard regimen, addition of aprepitant provided superior prevention against CINV in Korean patients receiving highly emetogenic cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Moreover, aprepitant significantly prevented CINV in patients who received the standard regimen to prevent CINV in previous chemotherapy cycles.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.93-100
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• 2012

Objective: This study is to review the current state of services offered to pharmacy users, and develop a service design converging a prescription service and a smart phone application service in order to enhance patients' experience at pharmacies and home. Background: Under the new medical system; separation of prescribing and dispensing drugs, a doctor writes a prescription to their patients and patients have their prescription filled at the pharmacy. As the number of flue, allergy and atopy patients has increased, waiting lines have been longer at pharmacies. Besides, the current medical service system lacks of providing proper information on prescribed pills to patients. There are already services offered during waiting times such as offering free drinks, magazines or suggesting general drugs which you can buy without prescription, however they neither cover the current medical service's shorts nor shorten the waiting time. Method: I researched objective and perceived waiting times reduction methods, the current service status at pharmacies, and the government's policy direction in a medical service. Also, I observed a patient's journey from the hospital to pharmacy and then home. I examined the circumstance at pharmacies, patients' behaviors and their thoughts during their journey, and extracted three main goals to design a service in order to help patients have positive perception during the waiting time; (1) to reduce the perceived time by the way of visualizing time and offering readings about what patients consider necessary, (2) to educate patients what they are into and how to get through, (3) to establish trust among patients, doctors and pharmacists. Based on three goals, I designed a structure and a wireframe for a new service application of smart phones. Results: With a new service design for pharmacy users, users can track their medical record and visit the information about their current medical treatments anytime. Also the service helps patients build reliable relationships with doctors and pharmacists. Conclusion: Experience is not just an activity but series of multiple activities. The serving range of a medical service should not be determined by stakeholders but user's holistic experience. By approaching a service design with a holistic vision, it can enrich not only a temporary experience but also a whole life well being. Application: Since there are already many service applications advising patients about their illness and finding right doctors, this service design is focused on the experience from getting a prescription till feeling better. The next move is to combine those two parts medical services and design an integrated service application. As a prescription is going to be coded in numbers, we might consider to design an un-attended pharmacy which can shorten huge amount of time for filling prescriptions.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.94-101
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• 2015

Background: In order to achieve the goals of community pharmacy practice, its legal, labour-related, and economic barriers need to be identified. This study examined pharmacists' perceptions of constraints on providing optimal pharmacy services in order to identify underlying factors and analyse the associations between barriers and pharmaceutical services in community pharmacies. Methods: A survey targeting pharmacy owners was conducted from May to June 2012 using a structured questionnaire including nine pharmaceutical service items. According to the service provision level, we classified pharmacists as inactive (fewer than 5 items among the listed 9 service items) and active providers (5 or more items). Principal component analysis was used to group significant factors for barriers into four thematic components. Associations between the participants' demographics and pharmacy characteristics and the services provided were explored by logistic regression analyses. Results: Participants were 402 pharmacists. Over 60% provided disease management services for hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidaemia. Variables that affected pharmaceutical services included the lack of separate areas for patient counselling (OR: 2.12, 95% CI: 1.18-3.80), and clinical knowledge and information-related barriers (OR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.36-0.97). Conclusion: Strategies for improving clinical knowledge and providing expeditious information are necessary in order to improve community pharmacy services.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 1993

Hospital pharmacy services are divided into dispensing affairs for inpatients and outpatients, pharmaceutical service, stock control, intravenous admixture service, drug information service, pharmacokinetic consultation service, education and research work, etc. But among those affairs, dispensing affair for outpatient is perceived as the most important work in Korea, because it is linked directly with hospital service for patients. Therefore, total computer system for dispensing area was adopted from opening point of hospital in 1989 in Asan Medical Center. Utilization of computer system for outpatient dispensing area is as follows; 1) Order communication system of prescription by Total Hospital Information System, 2) Automatic print-out system of direction for use by sticker connected with on-line net work, 3) Use of automatic tablet counting and packaging machines connected with on-line net work. Those computer system resulted in curtailment of pharmacy manpower and shortening of waiting-time for outpatient.