Evaluation of pharmacy services provided to operating room complexes in a proprietary hospital chain

Throughout the United States, health care provides have been faced with increasing costs due to the demand for services and new expensive technologies including pharmaceuticals, Pharmacists have met these challenges by proposing and implementing new programs to reduced costs and enhance revenues. Operating room complex pharmacy service is one are in which few reports in the pharmacy literature exists, especially in small (<150 beds) for -profit hospitals. A questionnaire was mailed to all HealthTrust Inc. Hospitals throughout the United States. HealthTrust Inc, is a for -profit hospital chain that operates acute care community hospital in 21 states. The information gathered by the questionnaire included demographic data, pharmacy operations and staffing, traditional pharmacy services provided and operating room complex pharmacy services provided. A questionnaire was simultaneously mailed to the individual hospital administrators to ascertain the importance they placed on the reported benefits of providing operating room complex pharmacy services. These data were sought to enable the pharmacy director to better understand how the administrators perceived the benefits of providing operating room complex pharmacy services. These data were then evaluated to determine the strength of association between bed size, staffing and traditional pharmacy services with operating room complex pharmacy services. The operating room complex pharmacy services are divided into revenue enhancement, waste management, narcotic control and clinical services/risk management. The data analysis indicated there are weak associations between the provision of traditional pharmacy services, staffing, and hospital bed size with that of operating room complex pharmacy services. This implies that pharmacy managers plan and provide these services as opportunities arise rather than by using a systematic, planned approach based of existing traditional pharmacy services. Many other confounding variables may also exist, such as budgetary constraints. These administrative results indicate that there is no agreement between the four criteria used by Health Trust Inc. administrators when evaluating the benefits of providing operating room complex pharmacy services. Therefore, the pharmacy director should be aware of his or her own administrator's priorities and needs when proposing operating room complex pharmacy services.