Chinese Intelligence Prescription System improves prescription accuracy while decreasing labor and drug costs

BMC Health Services Research

Research

Yu-Chuan Lin¹  Hung-En Lin¹  Ting-Yen Lin¹  Chin-Wei Chang¹  Hao-Hsiu Hung¹  Wei-Te Huang¹  Ting-Yu Huang¹  Sheng-Teng Huang²  Shi-Chen Ou³  Hui-Chun Hung⁴  Ching-Wen Chang⁴ 

[1] Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, North District, No. 2, Yude Rd, 40447, Taichung, Taiwan;Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, North District, No. 2, Yude Rd, 40447, Taichung, Taiwan;School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan;Research Cancer Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan;An-Nan Hospital, China Medical University, Tainan, Taiwan;Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital, North District, No. 2, Yude Rd, 40447, Taichung, Taiwan;School of Post-Baccalaureate Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan;Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taichung, Taiwan;

关键词: Traditional Chinese Medicine;    Precise prescription;    Dispensing time;    Labor cost;    Drug cost;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12913-023-09487-4

 received in 2022-11-25, accepted in 2023-05-02,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Background and AimThe traditional method of taking Chinese Medicine involves creating a decoction by cooking medicinal Chinese herbs. However, this method has become less popular, being replaced by the more convenient method of consuming concentrated Chinese herbal extracts, which creates challenges related to the complexity of stacking multiple formulas.MethodsWe developed the Chinese Intelligence Prescription System (CIPS) to simplify the prescription process. In this study, we used data from our institutions pharmacy to calculate the number of reductions, average dispensing time, and resulting cost savings.ResultsThe mean number of prescriptions was reduced from 8.19 ± 3.65 to 7.37 ± 3.34 (p=2.46×10-8\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$p=2.46\;\times10^{-8}$$\end{document}). The reduction in the number of prescriptions directly resulted in decreased dispensing time, reducing it from 1.79 ± 0.25 to 1.63 ± 0.66 min (p=1.88×10-14\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$p=1.88\;\times10^{-14}$$\end{document}). The reduced dispensing time totaled 3.75 h per month per pharmacist, equivalent to an annual labor cost savings of $15,488 NTD per pharmacist. In addition, drug loss was reduced during the prescription process, with a mean savings of $4,517 NTD per year. The combined savings adds up to a not insignificant $20,005 NTD per year per pharmacist. When taking all TCM clinics/hospitals in Taiwan into account, the total annual savings would be $77 million NTD.ConclusionCIPS assists clinicians and pharmacists to formulate precise prescriptions in a clinical setting to simplify the dispensing process while reducing medical resource waste and labor costs.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

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