OBJECTIVE The main purpose of this study was to analyze and compare three different medication delivery methods used by the outpatient care unit of a hospital pharmacy, namely health center collection, community pharmacy collection and home delivery. The secondary purpose was to compare the economic cost of those methods for the Spanish health service. METHOD A failure mode and effects analysis was carried out to attain the primary objective. For the secondary objective, an in-depth analysis was performed of the economic costs associated with each program using a cost-minimization analysis. RESULTS The failure mode and effects analysis resulted in scores of 184, 170 and 126 points for the health center collection, home delivery and community pharmacy collection programs, respectively. The economic evaluation, for its part, rendered estimated costs of €18,434.52, €11,417.08 and €7,986.52 for home delivery, health center collection and community pharmacy collection services, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The results of the study indicated that collection at the community pharmacy was the program associated to the lowest risk, most likely due to the crucial role of the pharmacist regarding the custody and preservation of medicines. As regards cost, dispensation at the community pharmacy was also associated with the lowest cost. Nevertheless, this finding was biased by the fact that, given the generous collaboration of pharmaceutical distributors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of transport and delivery to the pharmacy during the study period was zero. Further economic analyses are required to evaluate the costs of community pharmacy delivery and determine their impact on the public health system in cases where transport costs are different from zero.
Healthcare failure mode and effects analysis and cost‑minimization analysis of three pharmaceutical services.