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Publication type:	Conference other
Type of review:	Peer review (abstract)
Title:	The direct costs of automated vs. conventional drug dispensing
Authors:	Thommen, Christoph
et. al:	No
Conference details:	16. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (dggö), Halle (Saale), Deutschland, 4.-5. März 2024
Issue Date:	5-Mar-2024
Language:	German
Subject (DDC):	362.1041: Health economics
Abstract:	Einleitung / Introduction: Automated drug dispensing (ADD) describes the dispensing of patient-specific, automatically packaged units of medication that are sorted in the chronological order of the time of intake. In contrast, for conventional drug dispensing (CDD) the therapy duration is not necessarily matched to the package size and once opened packages must be thrown away. ADD, however, allows drugs to be portioned according to individual needs, thus reducing medication waste and costs. Another cost advantage relates to the unit price of a drug: The price for ADD can be charged based on the largest package, whereas with CDD, mainly smaller packages with higher unit prices are dispensed. Furthermore, some of the operating costs of pharmacies (e.g., infrastructure and personnel costs) can be saved. In nursing homes, where ADD has been used most frequently to date, it is possible to replace the manual handling of medication and consequently save resources. In addition to these direct effects of ADD, there are further indirect savings. Thanks to the safer dispensing of medication, there are fewer medication errors, which reduce follow-up costs (e.g., in the form of hospitalizations). ADD also leads to higher adherence to treatment. The necessary use of a management system for prescribed medication leads, in addition to operational benefits, to a more efficient and reliable medication review. Methode / Method: With the complete data of all drugs sold in Switzerland that are billed via the mandatory health insurance, we estimate the savings potential due to the differing unit prices per drug by package size. Based on the daily medication intake profiles of one of the largest producers of ADD in Switzerland, we can estimate the therapy duration per drug and its deviation from the optimal package according to CDD. This difference corresponds to a lower bound of medication wastage. Using high-quality time data for individual tasks obtained from a complete survey of nursing homes of a medium-sized Swiss canton, we estimate the time saved by eliminating the need for a complete manual preparation of medication intake. Ergebnisse / Results: Preliminary results show a direct savings potential through the full implementation of ADD in the order of CHF 720 million, which is about 9.3% of the total cost of drugs covered by mandatory health insurance. Zusammenfassung / Conclusion: Today, ADD systems are mainly used in nursing homes. However, the potential of ADD could also be extended to long-term outpatient care and to people with multi-medication but without need for nursing care. Regulatory consideration of ADD (e.g., through the approval of bulk packaging) would allow economies of scale to be exploited to an even greater extent and production costs to be further reduced..
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/30646
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Licence according to publishing contract
Departement:	School of Management and Law
Organisational Unit:	Winterthur Institute of Health Economics (WIG)
Appears in collections:	Publikationen School of Management and Law

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