Evaluation of pharmacy unit inspection utilizing a mobile application with smart glasses

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy practice
• Health informatics
• Human-computer interaction

Background:

• Pharmacy compliance requires efficient medication unit inspections.
• Mobile applications have been developed to streamline these processes.
• Emerging technologies like smart glasses are being explored to further enhance efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of integrating smart glasses with a pharmacy compliance mobile application on medication unit inspection efficiency.
• To compare the time to complete documentation and user satisfaction between using a mobile application alone versus smart glasses integrated with a mobile application.

Main Methods:

• A quasi-experimental design with pre- and postimplementation phases (90 days each).
• Ten pharmacy technicians used a mobile application alone, then integrated smart glasses with the application.
• Primary outcome: time to complete unit inspection documentation; Secondary outcome: user satisfaction via Likert scale survey.

Main Results:

• Unit inspection documentation time increased from 1 minute with the mobile app alone to 4 minutes with smart glasses (P < 0.01).
• User satisfaction scores for inspection efficiency, quality, and communication were significantly lower after smart glasses integration.
• No significant differences in user scores for comfort and interface categories were observed.

Conclusions:

• Integrating smart glasses with a mobile application did not improve the efficiency of pharmacy unit inspections.
• Further technological advancements in smart glasses are necessary to achieve potential benefits in pharmacy operations.