Reducing queues in a Nigerian hospital pharmacy

Abstract

Queues are characterized structures formed to maintain order and create a hold on time, money and 
human contribution towards development and efficient performance of any system. The aim of this 
work was to characterize the queue, describe the queue discipline of the outpatient pharmacy, to 
institute a cross-sectional intervention by streamlining queue behaviour and to measure the impact of 
streamlining queue characteristics and queue discipline on waiting time of patients. Results showed 
that queue characteristics existing at the pharmacy during the situation analysis was a single server
multiple queue model. However, after the intervention was done involving staff re-orientation, the 
streamlined process reduced waiting time from 167.0 to 55.1 min. Queue discipline was strictly 
instituted by designed tally cards that were serially numbered. The characterization and discipline that 
was instituted handled and/or eliminated the challenge of shunting, balking or jockeying and reduced 
reneging. The workflow chart was sketched and drawn to scale, aiding the collation of baseline data 
and for proposed structural modifications. Other results obtained include the waiting area to pharmacy 
space ratio, which gave a good result of 1:9. Effort should therefore be intensified by hospital 
pharmacists to reduce patient queues and improve efficiency of services, following the results of 
snapshots from this work.