Pharmaceutical is any finished product produced for medical purposes. Pharmaceuticals, in simple terms, are medical drugs while management deals with the organization and control of things or people. In order for pharmaceutical management to be successful, it should have a well functioning structure that has the following qualities: organization and management, policy and legislation, selection and rational use of medicine, pharmaceutical management information and logistics, and procurement.
Organization and management are some of the major factors that contribute to the successful pharmaceutical management system in a pharmacy. This is the organization of duties in the pharmacy e.g., arranging the medical drugs in order on the shelves for display and plating name tags on the medicine being sold as well as their prices. This sector highly relies on highly skilled workers who will provide and manage pharmaceutical services. If a person is not fully equipped with these skills may end up giving out wrong prescriptions to the consumer, which at the end with result in huge losses for the company because it will lead to a lack of quality assurance from the consumers hence will not buy their medical products. Pharmacy management should have a steady system whereby it should plan and set strategies that will improve and strengthen the pharmaceutical management system. It should understand its system well enough and do regular assessments for it to resolve any problem and monitor the progress. To attain a smooth run of the pharmacy, they can compare their system with that of other well-performing pharmacies to improve their management. The management is also responsible for cost-effectiveness, whereby it is required to control excess costs, distribution, and use of medicine. In case of any shortage of health workers, it is supposed to replace the slots with newly qualified workers.
Policies basically are the principles or guidelines set by an organization or an individual while legislation is the process of making and strictly following the regulations made by an authority, organization, or person. Policies and legislation also contribute to attaining a good pharmaceutical management system whereby countries have set pharmaceutical rules and regulations to govern the health sector. This includes: placement of standard prices for the medicines, acquiring a license for owning a pharmacy legally, and also establishes rules concerning medicine production. In each country usually has a standard regulatory body that oversees and monitors the rules and regulations placed. Some countries may not have such a system or may have a poorly managed regulatory body that monitors the quality and use of medical products. This is so risky because it may lead to the production of counterfeit products that might be harmful to the consumer. The policies placed help in guiding the allocation of funds for the pharmacy, inventions, and also in manufacturing and distribution of medicines. The importance of having rules and regulation to govern a pharmacy such as checking the expiry dates of the drugs, not selling substandard medicine or fake which can cause serious harm on the patient’s body organs or even death, avoid usage of inferior medical substance which can delay the recovery process or can increase the infection of the disease more to the body.
Rational use of medicine refers to the proper medication given to a patient, getting the appropriate dose, in the prescribed period of time and the correct medicines to cure the illing patient. The pharmacy should contain essential medicine, those that are commonly used and satisfy the consumers. For the management to acquire this essential medicines, they should list down diseases that are common and cause health problems within their area of location. This may lead to high profits due to the sales made. The management should ensure that the medicines are available for treatment at all times. We have cases whereby the patient wrongly prescribes for him or herself the drugs e.g someone may be illing from typhoid but head to the pharmacy and buy malaria drugs to treat the disease. Such in appropriate medication may cause resistance to cure. The prescriber of the medicine at the pharmacy is fully responsible in selecting the correct treatment for the consumer on the other hand the consumer should adhere to the instructions given inorder to successfully recover from the sickness. A person’s perspective or knowledge about a certain medication or drug also plays an important role in selecting the medicine.
A pharmaceutical management information system is an important body in the management whereby it harmonises all the data retrieved from the pharmaceutical operations, such as allocation of resources, files on the sales record, the rate of demand from the consumers and monitors the pharmaceutical management process. For proper running of the pharmaceutical management information system , it requires a program manager, health care providers and a policy maker. It is also responsible in monitoring and evaluating the individual performance of each staff member and their area of duty. The system improves accountability in the pharmaceutical organization whereby there is much recording and storage of the products manufactured, bought and sold out hence plays a major role in the pharmaceutical supply chain.It helps the organization in cases where donors may be willing to donate funds or medical equipments to the organization, they will want different data reports and having this component in the organization it makes it easier to access the data files.
Procurement is the act of obtaining or gaining something. In pharmaceutical procurement system it involves the acquiring of medicine and medical equipments of good quality at a good price. The supply chain cycle starts when the pharmaceuticals are supplied from the companies then ends when the pharmaceuticals are sold to the consumer. Afterwards the feedbacks are reported back to the procurement team for data storage.