yemenjmedYemen Journal of MedicinecoVolume 1 Issue 2MultidisciplinaryEnglishJuly - December 2022NNY20250329ArticleThe impact of implementing a pharmacy triage system on the reduction of patients’ waiting time in the fourth floor outpatient pharmacy at Hamad General Hospital, QatarEnglishY8284Abdel-Monem BadawiYousifEnglishNRaniaObaydatEnglishYAbdel-RahmanAbbasEnglishYAdhemRezkEnglishY10.32677/yjm.v1i2.3667Background and Objectives: The outpatient department (OPD) pharmacy is a section of the hospital pharmacy that helps patients obtain their prescribed medications. However, on-time delivery of medications and patients’ convenient access to the pharmacy are the hallmarks of a well-designed health-care system. Therefore, he aim of this study was to develop a pharmacy triage tool to improve patient flow and reduce waiting time in the fourth-floor pharmacy at Hamad General Hospital (HGH). Methods: This prospective and observational study was conducted on 14,740 patients who attended the OPD pharmacy (HGH, Qatar) between January 15, 2022 and March 15, 2022. This prospective and observational study consisted of three periods: A root cause analysis, a pre-intervention period of 1 month (January 15, 2021–February 14, 2021) and an intervention period of 1 month (15 February–15 March). We developed a pharmacy triage tool to improve patient flow and reduce waiting time by identifying patients who need their medications to be dispensed, as well as classifying patients to get the right patient to the right place and implementing a patient flow system to improve efficiency spends in pharmacy queues. Results: The results of this study showed that the use of the triage system in the pharmacy reduced the average waiting time of patients from 50 min to 15 min. The results were statistically significant at pEnglishHamad general hospital, Outpatient pharmacy, Qatar, Triage tool, Waiting timehttps://yemenjmed.com/admin/abstract?id=37References16191. Rahmawati M, Wardhani V. Key strategies to reduce waiting time in outpatient pharmacy. J Kedokteran Brawijaya 2021;31:47-51.2. Afolabi MO, Erhun WO. Patientsand;rsquo; response to waiting time in an out-patient pharmacy in Nigeria. Trop J Pharm Res 2003;2:207-14.3. Loh BC, Wah KF, Teo CA, et al. Impact of value added services on patient waiting time at the ambulatory pharmacy Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Pharm Pract 2017;15:846.4. Sun J, Lin Q, Zhao P, et al. Reducing waiting time and raising outpatient satisfaction in a Chinese public tertiary general hospital-an interrupted time series study. BMC Public Health 2017;17:668.5. Arafeh M, Barghash MA, Sallam E, et al. Six Sigma applied to reduce patientsand;rsquo; waiting time in a cancer pharmacy. Int J Six Sigma Comp Adv 2014;8:105-24.6. Ahmad BA, Khairatul K, Farnaza A. An assessment of patient waiting and consultation time in a primary healthcare clinic. Malays Fam Physician 2017;12:14-21.7. Rim MH, Thomas KC, Chandramouli J, et al. Implementation and quality assessment of a pharmacy services call center for outpatient pharmacies and specialty pharmacy services in an academic health system. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2018;75:633-41.8. Fahrurazi FE, Ibrahim NH, Mafauzy NM, et al. Factors affecting waiting time in Outpatient Pharmacy at Hospital Raja Perempuan Zainab II (HRPZ II). J Pharm 2022;2:1-7.