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CATHERINE W GICHUKI
DOHA
PRIMARY Health Care Corporation (PHCC) pharmacies handle approximately three million prescriptions a year across the 26 health centres in Qatar, officials have said, adding that the PHCC is working hard to improve the quality of pharmacy services.
Speaking to media persons, Director of Integrated Care & Continuity of Care Dr Durriya Mubarak al Qahtani said:"We make sure that the pharmacies are bigger with more and accessible windows to patients. We have a window dedicated to special needs patients, which are lower than the rest."
She said that the shelves and the stations at the pharmacies are built in a way to make it more patient-friendly ensuring quicker care to them.
The health centres have also developed a new system of dispensing medication that starts with identification of patient, followed by clinical screening of the prescription, ensuring the well preparation of the prescription, and finally its accurate delivery to the patient with collection and review of all the medicines.
Al Qahtani said that the measure has been taken to avoid queues at pharmacy as all these activities were carried out at the pharmacy counter itself in the past.
According to her, they have also increased the number of pharmacists and they recruit those who are qualified and can provide the expected quality that they hope for.
She added that they have Competency Assessment Framework, a tool that assures competency of pharmacists.
She also said that PHCC has developed a continuous development plan and training plan for the staff from various departments, which helps pharmacists remain up-to-date.
According to her, there is a test available at health centres that can differentiate between a sore throat caused by a viral infection and other infections.
She said that the PHCC is also responsible for the school clinics in the public schools."We make sure that the standards at the health centres are followed at schools in terms of storage of medicines and other things."
Pharmacy Affairs Specialist, Dr Wael Ezzeldin said that the PHCC has also developed fast tracking system for prescriptions involving complex cases.
"We aim at implementing the best international practices and that's why we are working with Accreditation Canada International," he added, noting that the main focus is on the safety of patients and the quality of services provided to them.
According to him, PHCC works with the Ministry of Public Health to improve the pharmaco-vigilance in Qatar-surveillance of the medication to see its effect on the patient.
He said there is a counselling room at all the new health centres to educate patients and their families about their treatment plan.
According to him, recently they developed a competency framework, which"will enhance the competence of our pharmacists to do some specific work for the patients."
He further said that they believe in multi-disciplinary team approach and they work with different departments within PHCC to fix problems related to medication management.
He also said that they are doing a study to see how robotic way of dispensing medicines can be applicable in PHCC as it is done in HMC.
The PHCC, meanwhile, is working with HMC on integrated services thus reducing waiting time for patients.
The integrated services include early detection and screening services like cancer screening, cardiology care clinic.
Speaking to media persons Pharmacy Affairs Specialist, Dr Wael said that they work extensively with the MoPH and the HMC regarding some integrated services that can facilitate and improve the waiting time for patients even at HMC.
"Now, we have shared care protocols with HMC in cardiology care clinics. Patients can be followed up by PHCC consultants working with the same protocols and guidelines as it is done at HMC."
According to him, the waiting time is different because the patient can be referred to a different health centre rather than his/her own instead of having to wait to go to HMC."This integrated service with HMC has a great impact on the patient waiting time."
