DHA opens its fifth smart pharmacy
dubai — The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) launched its fifth smart pharmacy in Nadd Al Hamar primary healthcare centre on Monday for dispensing and prescribing medication.
Since the launch of the smart pharmacies, around 36 million items have been barcoded and integrated within the formulary smart app, which resulted in zero dispensing errors in 2017 and 2018. This is the first smart pharmacy inaugurated in a DHA primary healthcare centre.
Earlier this year, the authority launched two smart pharmacies at Rashid Hospital, one in Latifa hospital and one in Dubai Hospital as part of its fully integrated system for pharmaceutical transactions.
The DHA’s fully integrated system, which has been nominated in the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Programme for Smart Government this year, includes the five smart pharmacies for dispensing and prescribing medication through a unified barcoding system.
These smart pharmacies reduced the waiting time to an average of 2.6 minutes, hence increasing the time allocated for explaining medication instruction to an average of 5.65 minutes.
Also by reducing the processing time from 22.5 minutes on average in 2016 to 7.9 minutes in 2018, the outpatient satisfaction rate increased from 69 per cent in 2016 to 94 per cent in 2018.
By implementing this initiative, the DHA saved Dh3.48 million in two years, and pharmacists’ happiness increased from 73.5 per cent in 2016 to 85 per cent in 2017.
These smart pharmacies are operated via a robot that can store up to 35,000 medicines, prepare 12 prescriptions in a minute and dispense 8,000 medicines in an hour. The system is also fully integrated with Salama Epic EMR.
The DHA is the first government authority in the region to implement the Smart Barcoding System.
Its benefits include eliminating medication errors and combating counterfeit medicines, as it can track, trace and recall any medicine distributed throughout the DHA .
Humaid Al Qattami, directorgeneral of the DHA, inaugurated the smart pharmacy at Nadd Al Hamar Primary Healthcare Centre on Monday.