Pharmaceutical system

CHAPTER ONE

1.0             
INTRODUCTION

Pharmacy
management system is a management system that is designed to improve accuracy
and to enhance safety and efficiency in the pharmaceutical store. It is a
computer based system which helps the Pharmacist to improve inventory
management, cost, medical safety etc.

The
system allows the user to enter a manufacturing and expiry date for a
particular product or drug during opening stock and sales transaction. The
system will also give report showing the list of products expiry after a
specified date before the product eventually expires. It also involves manual
entry upon arrival of new batches of drugs and upon drug movement out of the
pharmacy for a certain period, e.g. every month, the pharmacist may want to
generate report for the movement of drugs in and out of the pharmacy, getting
information about the drugs e.g. expiry date, date purchased, number of drug
type left, location of a drug in the pharmacy.

At
present, manual system is being utilized in the pharmacy. It requires the
pharmacist to manually monitor each drug that is available in the pharmacy.
This usually leads to mistakes as the workload of the pharmacist increases.

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Due to the size and quality service of the pharmacy,
the pharmacy has a very large customer base. These customers tend to visit the
pharmacy for services mostly when they close from work. At this period, the
number of customers that patronise the pharmacy is on the increase, thereby
making the workload of the pharmacists much more tedious. This case makes it
difficult for the pharmacist to attend to customers in a short period.

Meanwhile the pharmacist has to
ensure satisfaction in services to keep their customers. The factors mentioned
above, results in delay of the services being rendered to the customers,
thereby slowing down sales and risk losing valuable customers in the long run.

1.2       STATEMENT OF
THE PROBLEM

Pharmacy
management has kept paper record in filing cabinets. Managing a very large
pharmacy with records on papers will be tedious and difficult to keep track of
inventories with regards to the drugs in the store, expiry date, quantity of
drugs available based on the categories and their functions.

The
pharmacist has to order drugs to replenish the already diminishing stock. In
addition, ordering of drugs is being carried out manually. Significant amount
of time is allocated for writing the order as the pharmacist needs to go
through the stock balance and make rough estimate of the amount to order based
on Figures.

Drugs
are not supposed to be used after they have expired. This project work will
prompt the pharmacist about drugs that are close to expiry, preventing those
drugs from being sold and also providing solution to the earlier stated
problems.

1.3       AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this project is to develop a
software for the effective management of a pharmaceutical store that will be
able to achieve the following objectives:

-     
Ensuring effective
policing by providing statistics of the drugs in stock.

-     
Maintaining correct
database by providing an option to update the drugs in stock.

-     
Improving the
efficiency of the system by ensuring effective monitoring of services and
activities.

-     
 To provide optimal drug inventory management
by monitoring the drug movement in the pharmacy.

-     
To ensure that there
exists a level of restricted access based on functionality and role.

-     
To ensure that the
system is user friendly.

-     
To be able to generate
report within a specified period of time.

1.4       SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The scope of this project is limited to the activities of a
pharmaceutical store which includes will improving
health outcomes, reduce hospital and long term care admissions, enhance access
and care in the Estate and surrounding communities and ensuring best use of
resources, the use of a computer based management system for improving the
efficiency of a pharmacy is needed and it is an essential part of any modern
continuously evolving society.

The
system will not be able to handle drug prescription, drug to drug interaction.
The system will not be able to handle contraindication and polypharmacy in a
prescription; this implies that these services will be manually completed by
the pharmacist.

1.5       RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The
research method used for this project work gives a description of how the
pharmacy management system for Boniks Pharmacy and stores, Gwarimpa Estate,
Abuja will be developed.

Therefore
the method used in the design and collections of information from various
sources are as follows:

-     
Studying the present
system in detail and the organizational style.

-     
Knowing and
understanding the input and output processes of the existing system.

-     
A qualitative form of
interview was conducted in the organization to understand the mode of operation
of the old system.

-     
Primary data: This
source has to do with the text book contacted for the development of this
project.

1.6       DEFINITION OF TERMS

System:
Is the complex purposeful collection of interrelated components that work
together to take some objectives.

Drug interaction;
is a situation in which a substance (usually another drug) affects the activity
of a drug when both are administered together.

Polypharmacy:
is the use of multiple medications by a patient, especially when too many forms
of medication are used by a patient, i.e. when more drugs are prescribed than
is clinically warranted.

Contraindication: is the condition or
factor that serves as a reason to withhold a certain medical treatment