Impacts of a Mail-Order Service for Refilling Prescriptions on Patient Satisfaction and Operational Load at a Comprehensive Cancer Center in Jordan

Abstract

Background

Mail-order services for refilling prescriptions for medications have been established in many countries and have increased patient satisfaction. We developed a mail-order service for the outpatient pharmacy of a comprehensive cancer center in Jordan.

Objective

To describe the implementation of a mail-order service and to report the impact of the service on patient satisfaction and the pharmacy workload.

Methods

A multidisciplinary team was formed to plan a mail-order service for refilling prescriptions for medications, and a survey was designed to evaluate patient satisfaction with the service. Patients were instructed to call the refill call center and order their medications at least 48 hours before their refill is due. The pharmacy workflow for refilling prescriptions was evaluated, and the time required with and without the mail-order service was documented, with a calculation of the time saved.

Results

At 1 year after the mail-order service had been established, 14 200 prescriptions had been refilled through the service, with the majority (97.5%) dispensed within 48 hours of the order time. As per the survey conducted with 219 patients, on the overall satisfaction, 69.4% reported being highly satisfied with the service and 27.9% reported being satisfied. The problems reported with the service were delay in arrival (n = 23, 10.5%), medication-related errors (n = 9, 4.1%), cash-related error (n = 1, 0.45%), improper storage condition (n = 1, 0.45%), and delivery to the wrong address (n = 4, 1.8%). The service was also associated with reduced overall time for processing in the outpatient pharmacy service; for patients receiving their medications from the pharmacy, resulting in reduced patients’ overall waiting time (from 11.4 to 8.2 minutes). The service resulted in saving of 0.4 full-time employee at 1 year of implementation.

Conclusions

A mail-order service for refilling prescriptions within a hospital setting had positive outcomes on both patient satisfaction and the pharmacy workflow. The major issues were related to transportation and logistics.