Page 126 - HA Convention 2015

Service Priorities and Programmes Free Papers

SPP4.3 Clinical Safety and Quality Service II 16:15 Room 221

Monday, 18 May Dispensing Dosage Calculator for Capecitabine (Xeloda®)
Ling WKV, Yuen YHD, Fung HCS, Chung KWB, Mak YYK, Chan LOM, Law KMK
Department of Pharmacy, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hong Kong

Introduction

Capecitabine (Xeloda®) is commonly indicated for breast cancer and colorectal cancer with a 14 days regimen. Bearing
with such regimen, capecitabine is prescribed with cyclic regimen and is not compatible for automatic conversion by the
Pharmacy Management System (PMS). PMS fails to translate doctor’s line to the drug label instruction and manual entry is
required. Human errors for manual entry regimen lines are sometimes inevitable. Four incidences related to capecitabine
were reported between August 2012 and April 2014, and a Xeloda® dosage calculator was developed in May 2014. The
Xeloda® dosage calculator can generate a dispensing “sample” label indicating the instruction and quantity of each drug
strength and can be affixed onto the related prescription. This process greatly increases the accuracy of manual entry and
checking of the dispensed medication.

Objectives

The objective of this study is to demonstrate improved accuracy and efficiency when checking manually entered drug
regimen of capecitabine by using the Xeloda® dosage calculator.

Methodology

A small cross over study “Xeloda® mapping programme trial” was conducted to assess the accuracy and efficacy of using
the Xeloda® dosage calculator compared to the use of traditional reference table during the checking process. 10 senior
staffs were divided into two groups, group A and group B. Group A was assigned to perform accuracy checking of five
simulated questions (Q1 to Q5) on physician regimen line against the capecitabine dispensing labels by employing the use of
the Xeloda® dosage calculator, and five simulated questions (Q6 to Q10) by using the traditional reference table. On the other
hand, group B performed the accuracy checking vice versa. The accuracy and time to perform the checking process were
evaluated between the two groups.

Results

The study demonstrated a 16% higher accuracy and 30% improvement of efficiency (by time) in the checking process when
using the Xeloda® dosage calculator. The Xeloda® dosage calculator was used at the outpatient pharmacy at F block in May
2014 and no further incidence has been reported as of 31st January 2015. Its application to other dispensing activities could
be further explored. It is believed that it could reduce the risk of error from manual calculations.

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