DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF DRUG INFORMATION

1.1 Introduction

Computerization is defined as the control of processes by computers and its peripherals. Today it would be difficult to think of any process, business or action that could not have profited from the numerous benefits of the computer system. Controlling process or devices with computer started long ago since the invention of computer. in the 20th century inventors tried to make processes easier with the use of computers. Secondly computerization has been greatly applied or used in controlling process that requires frequent action such as drug procurement, drug management, drug tracking and drug distributions in hospital management information system in pharmacy departments of hospitals. Drug information system reduces the need to call doctors with questions about hand-written prescriptions. DIMS supports storage and retrieval of patient prescription and medication information, and may provide application services supporting dispensing activities such as drug-usage evaluation.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Drug Information Management System provides drugs data for the doctors and pharmacists to be referred. The drug data include the drug categories, trade name, generic name, manufactured company, drug contents, indications, dosage, contradiction, special precaution, drug adverse reaction and drug interaction. All these data are useful for doctors and pharmacists. Doctors and pharmacist in the hospital nowadays still referred the drug data in manual approach. Based on the problems that occur while using books as a drug references by doctors and pharmacists, the main factor has been detected that contribute the problems. The main factor is that, there is no electronic system for drug references that can be viewed by doctors and pharmacists. And if any updates for the latest drug data must be made, there is no faster way to update it so that the doctors and pharmacist can only refer to the up to date drug data as their references. This Drug Information Management System is useful for the alternative therapy recommendation for patients. it aid to avoid drug toxicity based on the drug contents and the expired date, provide list of poison drugs and educate the patients who are not in the medical field about the drug references to increase their caution about the specific drug especially for the patient with chronic diseases. It also provides instruction for the drug dosage that have to be taken for adult and children. Computerized Drug Information Management System of World Health Organization shows various drugs that one can purchase. It records the available drugs, the sold drugs and the money collected from the sold drug. It involves database programming to keep track of the event of the system. The program is also implemented using web based program.

The overall aim of this project is to optimize time and material in the processing of data needed for effective operation of large pharmacy department of a hospital. By this approach, data integrity, data redundancy, and consistency will be ensured. Drugs are the chemical substances that are administered to patients for curative purposes and prophylaxis. It can also be known as a medicine, because it is the essential part of peoples care. The ability of the computer to store and retrieve information at a very fast and efficient rate makes its application useful in management operations. Drug management involves drug procurement, drug distribution, drug tracking and its information management. Drug distribution is concerned with distribution of drugs within the different medical units or departments in a hospital, while drug procurement is concerned with the purchasing activities of the drugs by the pharmacy department of the hospital. in the same vein, drug tracking is concern with the continuous monitoring of the actual quantity of drugs held in the hospital pharmacy or any other drug warehouse /store. It also controls the stock level.

Pharmaceutical unit in a hospital is concerned with drug management activities. They carry out the responsibility of making appropriate selection and drugs used by formulating an annual, monthly, weekly or daily list of drugs requirement and management reports. However, in some hospitals today, some pharmacists still use the manual system of operation which can lead to inappropriate drug management errors due to problems of handling voluminous file within a short period of time. This could make data to be easily inaccessible and also delivery of drugs can lead to misplacement of patients’ files.

A lot of people have been suffering as a result of ignorance because they take drugs without knowing the side effect of the drug. People have died because of ignorance of taking wrong drugs at the wrong time. Drug Information Management System gives details about the drugs and the side effect of any drugs, so that any drugs been given to a patient he/she will know whether the drugs is reacting in their body system or not. The effect of this is the abuse of drugs which weakened immune system, increasing the risk of illness and infection. It also led to death and abdominal pain which can lead to changes in appetite and weight loss.

It is against the background that the developments of this software to enable people have access to drug related information, so the software users should not give false information that is out of the software deeds. This research work is based on providing adequate information about drugs. At the end of this project, the drug information software will be able to Enable the end-users to order for drugs without mistake of procuring more than required.

The Disclaimer alert of the Drug Information Management System is beyond under aged or unqualified personnel using the software for his/her personal health advantage. Ensure to read and ask qualified expert about any statement or fact that is not familiar or known to you, otherwise this software would not be held in contempt for any negative reason that is not within the scope of study.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that drug procurement, tracking, distribution and information management in this regard are routine processes carried out in various hospitals across Nigeria. It is a common place to observe that these routine processes are still preformed manually or are minimally computerized even in our Teaching Hospitals. This manual approach to these routine operations has a lot of problems associated with it, ranging from poor handling of drug data of patients, lack of good storage information system for drugs and drug dispensary, delays, to the difficulty in retrieving information on drugs and patients’ records. In view of all these problems, it becomes necessary to develop a computer based drug information management system and distribution tracking system. This is what this research project is set to address by computerizing the routine processes in our hospitals and in particular that of Pharmacy Department of UNTH Enugu.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to design and implement a Computerized System for the Management of Drug Information. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:

1. Enable the end-users to order for drugs without mistake of procuring more than required;
2. Ensure accurate keeping of records of drugs; and
3. Assist the system user to take good stock of drugs and prevent dispensary of expired drugs.

1.5 Significance of Study

The significance derivable from this work includes the following:

1. It will provide reliable healthcare services.
2. It will guarantee hospital management and patients of genuine and safe drugs.
3. It will ensure an efficient and standard drug dispensary system.
4. It will provide a data base for stock taking of drugs procured and dispensed any moment.

Finally, this system when completed and implemented it will help provide adequate information about most commonly used drugs, and it will be beneficial to individuals such as students, pharmacist and drug prescribers by providing accurate and complete information about each drug or medicine before self medication takes place.

1.6 Scope of the study

The scope of this research is focused on the Design and Implementation of a Computerized System for the Management of Drug Information. This research work will cover only the Pharmaceutical Department of the University of Nigerian Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu. It will present an up to date and comprehensive design of the following:

1. Planning and control system which includes inventory control and drug distribution
2. Drug procurement procedure in a hospital.
3. The expiry status of each drugs at any point in time
4. The database of all types and names of some drugs that would be store and operate on.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint:The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies:Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research Material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Assumption

It is assumed that all the information gathered with the respect to inventory control is correct as implemented by the university of Nigerian teaching hospital (UNTH) Enugu.

1.9 Definition of Terms

Database:

It is a collection of logically related data to meet the information need of organization.

DBMS:

Database Management Software that enable the user to define, maintain Control the database.

Application Program:

It is a computer program that interacts with the database.

Menu:

This is a list of options presented on the screen with each option identified by short code followed by longer description of its purposes.