[THE SHERLOCK SYSTEM - CLINICAL AND LOGISTIC PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICES].

Area of Science:

• Hospital Pharmacy Management
• Health Informatics
• Clinical Pharmacy Practice

Background:

• Traditional drug inventory methods are costly and inefficient, leading to waste and high resource utilization.
• The unit-dose drug distribution system improves medication safety but can be resource-intensive.
• Barzilai Medical Center implemented the SHERLOCK system, a novel computerized approach to drug inventory management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a computerized system for efficient hospital drug inventory management.
• To assess the impact of the SHERLOCK system on drug distribution costs and medication safety.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of the SHERLOCK system, integrating physician orders with pharmacy logistics.
• Data collection over nine months (January-September 2013) in two computerized internal departments.
• Comparison of drug distribution costs and inventory data with the previous year (2012) and control departments.

Main Results:

• A significant reduction in drug distribution costs was observed (p<0.05) in departments using SHERLOCK.
• Projected annual budget savings of nearly 20% in the research department.
• No significant cost reductions were noted in control departments without the SHERLOCK system.

Conclusions:

• The SHERLOCK system is an effective tool for improving drug inventory management in hospitals.
• The computerized system enhances medication safety and operational efficiency.
• SHERLOCK offers the benefits of unit-dose systems without the associated high costs.