Application of quality control circle in reducing the loss rate of expired medicine in our hospital

CUI Jin-tao; LIU Ping; CAO Yuan-yuan; CHAI Dong

Abstract：[ABSTRACT]Objective:To explore the effect of quality control circle (QCC) activity in reducing the medicine loss caused by expiration.Methods:Each step was carried out according to QCC. Speciifcally, brainstorming method was applied to analyze the reason of a high level for the expired medicine, ifshbone diagram and association graph were used to explore solutions and evaluate tangible results (reported loss rate of expired medicine), while radar diagram was adopted for assessing intangible outcomes (ability of QCC) and formulating standardized process.Results:The results strongly suggested that the major reasons for high loss rate of expired medicine were the inefifcient communication with doctors about medicine information, the careless omission in pharmacists' work, the frequent change of medicine speciifcation, producer, batch number and the commercial distribution of medicines which were close to the expired date, etc. Corresponding working system and many measures were brought into working process of medicine conservation to improve the situation. As a result, the reported loss rate of the expired drug decreased from 0.230% to 0.021%. Some remarkable elevations in terms of QCC skills, sense of responsibility, team spirit, capability of communication and coordination were registered. Conclusion: Implementation of QCC plays an important role in reducing ratio of the overdue medicines in our hospital.