Opioids are essential in palliative care. We report the efficacy of a new system involving a collaboration of people in different occupations dispensing opioid injections (OI) at palliative care units.
A questionnaire survey (n = 21) examining the first year of the system September 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012, including items: 1) number of times OI were prescribed, 2) amount of work in dispensing OI by pharmacists and nurses, 3) comparative investigation on state of appropriate use of medical drugs, and 4) influence on nursing operations, was conducted. The results showed that 1) the average number of prescriptions was 168.3 ± 48.5 per month (the dispensing rate increased from 30.3% at the time of commencement to 74.0% one year later), 2) the amount of work (minutes × person / prescription) was 7.2 ± 1.8 for pharmacists compared to 11.9 ± 4.2 for nurses, showing a significantly higher dispensing efficiency amongst pharmacists (P = 0.004), 3) the number of cases in which misadministration was avoided after moving to the new system was 16, 4) the shortened time in OI-related nursing operations was 57.8 ± 21.5 minutes per person per day. Twenty-one respondents (100%) stated that the system led to an improvement in the quality of nursing operations. The survey results suggest that the introduction of the present system contributes to reducing the amount of OI-related operations, to the appropriate use of OI, and to improvement in the overall quality of palliative care.
