Hospitals Pharmacy Quality Assurance System Assessment in Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Abstract

Background: Health system pharmacies, like other health care professional, practice under a number of mandated stan­dards. Basic concepts of quality assurance (QA) standards should be applied to hospital pharmacy practice. The survey re­ported here is to assess QA system implementation and its standard indicators observation in Tehran University of Medical Sci­ences (TUMS) hospitals' pharmacies in 2007 - 2008.

Methods: A cross - sectional, descriptive analytical survey was accomplished. First, a checklist within the framework of QA standard indicators was made to assess TUMS hospitals pharmacies practice. Collected data was saved by Excel soft­ware for recording and analyzed by SPSS version-15. Observation rate of QA standard indicators was classified by inappropri­ate, relatively appropriate, and appropriate.

Results: Characteristics of TUMS hospitals pharmacists organizational structure, size, equipment, safety facility and drug require­ment were studied by QA standard indicators.

Conclusion: Many of QA standard indicators are observed and implemented in TUMS hospitals pharmacies, but several of these standards are not observed too. It is appropriate that all TUMS hospitals pharmacies are required to advance the profes­sion, often with the same goal of increasing involvement in direct patient care.