By; SANI ALIYU, Zaria.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria has lunched the “e-pharmacy management system” for effective pharmaceutical services at the hospital.
The e-pharmacy software is the first of its kind in any Northern Nigeria Teaching Hospitals.Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PSN) Registrar, Mr Elijah Mohammed said at the launching of the facility in Shika, Zaria, that it would help in solving problems associated with drugs prescription and dispensing.“This facility will not only make pharmaceutical service delivery interesting, timely and discrete, but will also help to solve problems associated with drug prescription and dispensing.“I want to specifically recognise and thank the Chief Medical Director (CMD) for the landmark he has been recording for the past years he came on board, most especially in oversight function in Drug Revolving Funds [DRF].“DRF is very very functional here, but in most teaching hospitals I have visited, the DRF is not functioning or is facing one problem or the other, therefore, I want other CMDs to take a queue,” he stressed.In an opening remark, the Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Ibrahim Abdul-Aguye congratulated ABUTH for adopting the e-pharmacy management system.Abdu-Aguye, who was a former CMD of the hospital, advised the management to set aside substantial amount for proper maintenance of the facilities.Prof. Lawal Khalid, the current CMD said the management plan to undertake the complete computerisation of the hospital’s operations, if funding improves.“In view of this, we therefore have to start a piecemeal approach, we have started with Information Management but we are not there yet.“But in pharmacy, we recorded very fast development as far as computerisation is concerned.“This is facilitated because the change in leadership of the department had ushered in so many new innovations,” Khalid said.Earlier, the Head of Pharmacy Department, Mrs Bilkisu Umar enumerated some advantages of the e-pharmacy to include early and accurate determination of cost of drugs, promoting rational drug dispensing and drug use and enhancing patients safety.Others according to her, are easy access to current drug information, efficient drug procurement and inventory management, reduction of drug stock out and expiration and easy communication between different pharmacy units.She said the phase-one of the project covered bulk store, active store, main outpatient dispensary, oncology store, head of department office, unit programme manager’s office and DRF account’ office.
