Endeavours in E-fill

Implementation of Drug Refill Services (DRS) in HA
Hospital Authority Head Office / New Territories East Cluster / New Territories West Cluster / Hong Kong East Cluster / Kowloon East Cluster

To reduce the risks of drug surplus and drug misuse among specialist outpatients, the HA Head Office and four clusters have jointly launched a pilot programme on ‘E-fill’ Drug Refill Services since 2017 to consolidate and refill drugs for eligible medical outpatients in phases. As at April last year, about 20,000 patients have benefited from the programme. The team describes the process as an endeavour in continuous improvement and the results today have not been easy to achieve.

Teresa Ngan, the team leader and Senior Pharmacist, and her team members explain that the programme seems simple to execute, as it only requires patients or their families to collect refill medications at designated counters of hospital’s pharmacy according to the refill schedules on the prescription slips. In fact, it involves cross-hospital, inter-departmental and multi-disciplinary participation. The process is constantly modified in the light of clinical experience, and technological elements are incorporated to pave the way for the future development of Smart Hospital pharmacy services. These include the setting up of computer systems and the use of big data to screen eligible patients, the establishment of messaging channel between the Clinical Management System and the Pharmacy Management System, as well as the digitalisation of drug collection.

The service has also strengthened the role of pharmacists in multi-disciplinary collaboration. Under the programme, pharmacists will review upcoming prescriptions daily and reconcile the relevant patients’ medications. They will call patients or arrange face-to-face consultations if the patients are found to have been admitted to hospital or need prescription changes. The members say, “As doctors have limited time for consultation, if pharmacists can communicate with patients in advance, they can share the workload of doctors in reviewing prescriptions during consultation, and at the same time patients can understand more about use of medication, which is a win-win situation. The programme has also led to many opportunities and planted the seeds for future development under the new normal of healthcare service. So our colleagues are getting more and more engaged in it.”

Team List