Analysis of workload and staffing requirements for a critical-care satellite pharmacy

A study to determine the workload and the staffing requirements of a proposed critical-care satellite pharmacy is reported. Data for all patients admitted to the adult surgical intensive-care units (SICUs) of an acute-care teaching hospital were recorded for 30 days. Both clinical and distributive data were collected, such as the number and times of patient admissions to the SICUs, the times medication orders were written and their nature, the number and types of drugs administered per patient per day, the number of medication profile reviews per day, and the number and types of interventions. Productivity standards were determined for specific clinical and distributive tasks and used to project the staffing requirements of the new satellite pharmacy. It was determined that proposed changes in distributive services, including expansion of the i.v. admixture program and implementation of a syringe-pump infusion system, would increase the pharmacist and technician staffing requirements by 1.91 and 6.77 hours per day, respectively. Expansion of clinical services, such as pharmacokinetic monitoring, would increase the pharmacist staffing requirements by 8.68 hours per day. It was estimated that the SICU satellite pharmacy could save the hospital more than $200,000 per year. Hospital administration approved a request to increase staffing by 3 full-time-equivalent (FTE) pharmacists and 1.6 FTE technicians. Workload analyses and projections of staffing requirements must incorporate measurements for clinical as well as distributive services.