Drive-through prescription collection service

Aim

To increase the safety of consumers during COVID-19 waves by reducing their time spent on hospital grounds, whilst continuing to provide them with comprehensive and consistent medication-related education.

To increase the safety of staff and patients during COVID-19 waves by reducing the need for in-person interactions with other consumers.

Outcomes

The waiting time for consumers on hospital grounds reduced by up to 96%, with these consumers not needing to leave their vehicles. Also, in the short time spent on the hospital grounds, consumers were mainly waiting in the safety and comfort of their own vehicles.

Not only were consumers very satisfied with this service improvement, but the community-based staff were also able to collect medicines in the same manner, again reducing foot traffic through the hospital grounds.

Background

Most consumers who utilised the hospital pharmacy services were considered vulnerable with chronic conditions and susceptible to infections , hence it was decided that reducing their time spent on hospital grounds was paramount for their safety.

Discussion

Waiting time on hospital grounds reduced to two minutes from up to one hour. Of the 140 consumers surveyed, 100% were either very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the service, over 90% wanted the service to continue beyond the pandemic situation, and 100% reported receiving sufficient or more than sufficient education regarding their medicines via telehealth.

Lessons learnt

Although consumer acceptance of this change in model for medication collection was a pleasant surprise, the largest surprise was how well the idea was embraced by the hospital and wider community, with the service being awarded the ACHS Non-Clinical Service Delivery Award in 2020.

A small challenge was to establish workflow and staffing changes to accommodate for, and coordinate, the drive through service (including the use of telehealth in this setting) in a short period of time. However, staff embraced the changes as they quickly realised the safety benefits for both themselves and the consumers.

As this was initially a temporary and quickly initiated service, no signage was erected, nor allocation of specific parking areas.  Consumer feedback indicated that this would be ideal if the service was to be continued. At times the parking area was at capacity, which reduced the efficiency of the service.