2020년 Vol.37 No.02
Background : In Korea, the reimbursement price is determined based on the resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS) system comprising physician (pharmacist) work, practice expense, and the professional liability insurance component. The purpose of this study was to define and measure pharmacists’ activities in hospital to compute appropriate reimbursement prices for pharmacists’ services.
Methods : We defined the activities of hospital pharmacists as 38 duties/124 tasks/489 task elements and surveyed all pharmacists in the pharmacy department of Seoul National University Hospital. The conducting duration for each task depended on the daily (or monthly) occurrence via the self-reporting method. The proportion of duration for each task during the total working period (480 minutes/day) was calculated and compared by sector.
Results : For the 110 respondents, the duration proportion of work related to dispensing was
the highest at 63.3%, followed by clinical pharmacy services and medication counseling at
16.7%, drug information and administration at 7.0%, education and research at 4.5%, indirect
activity at 4.0%, and work for clinical trials at 1.5%. Facilities & environmental management,
quality improving activity, managing health information systems, monitoring adverse drug reactions,
and participating in committee activities had a lower proportion at under 1%.
Conclusion : Our results present a good reflection of the working activities for the actual
hospital pharmacy, and it shows that work related to dispensing continues to consume a large
portion of time among hospital pharmacy services. The definition of the detailed work performed
by the hospital pharmacist and the survey of the workload from our study are meaningful
in that it could be used as necessary evidence when needed to compute reimbursement
prices for new pharmaceutical care services in the future.