CHAPTER 2

RESEARCH BACKGROUND

2.1 URMC History

URMC is a new medical centre that is located in Ipoh, Perak. It was opened in July 2, 2011. Even though URMC is recently established, it has successfully reached a substantial number of patients since their first opening. Unlike the other existing medical centre, URMC is focusing on women healthcare especially for pregnant women. Even so, URMC still provide services for accident and emergency patients. Below are list of some of the services provided by URMC.

Specialized Women Healthcare For Outpatient (OPD) Fetal Maternal Specialist Ante-Natal and Post-Natal Women Health Screening

Specialized Women Healthcare - For Inpatient (IPD) Delivery Surgery Gynaecology

Paediatrics OPD treatment General Surgery Radiology and Imaging Accident and Emergency (24 hours) Orthopedic Physiotherapy-sports injury & physician

The URMC has five main departments to perform its daily activity, which are the administration, ward, pharmacy, inventory and financial department. The administration department is responsible for handling all the administration processes in the URMC. These included patients registration and appointment with specialized doctor. Ward department is responsible for managing ward inventory stock, surgery, operation and taking care of admitted patients. The third department, which is the pharmacy department, is responsible for dispensing prescribed medication to patients and updating stock inventory. For inventory department, they are in charge of taking control of inventory management and distribution, which includes checking stock availability and stock distribution within URMC. The last department, financial department is in charge of managing the billing and services within the URMC.

2.2 Current Procedure in URMC

2.2.1 Doctor Prescription Doctor conducts medical check-up with the patient. After finish examining the patient, doctor fills out the patient medical record and required prescription. Doctor prescription will be passed to pharmacy staff by patient. Pharmacy staffs prepare the prescribed medical supplies and update the inventory. Patient received medication.

2.2.2 Inventory Control Inventory staffs check quantity of each medical supply. If there are some supplies that are low on quantity of expected medical supplies quantity and if there are supplies that nearing its expiration date, the inventory staff will call the supplier for resupply of those particular medical supplies. When medical supplies arrive, purchase record will be kept. Inventory staff updates the current quantity of medical supplies.

2.2.3 Ward Request Supplies Inventory staffs received request resupply form from ward staff. Inventory staff prepared the medical supplies requested and sent it to ward department. Inventory staff updated the current quantity of medical supplies.

2.2.4 Ward Inventory Control Ward staffs check quantity of each medical supply. If there are some supplies that are low on quantity of expected medical supplies quantity, the ward staff will request for resupply to inventory department. When medical supplies arrive, ward staff updates the current quantity of medical supplies.

2.3 Flowchart
2.3.1 Doctor -> Patient (Doctor Prescription) Doctor
Doctor receive patient

Patient

Doctor review patient medical record

Doctor consult patient

Patient describe health condition

Doctor made diagnosis on patient health condition

Doctor prescribe medical supplies based on diagnosis

Give Prescription to Patient

Receive doctor prescription

2.3.2 Patient -> Pharmacy (Medical Supplies Purchased) Patient

Customer submit prescription

Pharmacy
Pharmacy check prescription

Search for prescribe medical supplies

Available or not?

No

Inform the customer

Yes

Prepare prescribed medical supplies

Prepare alternative medical supplies

Patient receive invoice

Provide Invoice

Patient makes payment to finance staff

Collect prescribed medical supplies

Update medical supplies stock

2.3.3 Ward > Inventory (Ward Medical Supplies Request) Ward

Ward staff check ward inventory

Inventory

If low quantity

No

Do nothing

Yes

Fill out request resupply form

Submit form

Inventory staffs check form submitted

Search for requested medical supplies

Available or not?

No

Inform ward department

Yes

Prepare requested medical supplies

Request resupply from supplier

Receive medical supplies

Send to ward department

Update ward inventory

Update medical supplies stock

2.3.4 Inventory -> Supplier (Medical Supplies Resupply) Inventory

Inventory staffs check medical supplies stock

Supplier

If low quantity

No

Do nothing

Yes

Determine how many medical supplies should be purchased

Send purchase order to desired supplier

Received purchase order

Accept medical supplies

Send ordered medical supplies

Check defect or not?

No

Reject medical supplies

Yes

Make payment to supplier

Keep transaction record

Update medical supplies stock

2.4 Existing Problem

Since URMC opening, all of the tasks within URMC that the staff carried out are done manually by them. Because of this, sometime, lots of time and effort were spent and wasted just to complete a single task. This resulted in several problems, for example within the processes of managing and distributing the stock of medical supplies within URMC. Currently, the inventory staffs have no kind of quick and efficient method or processes of identifying which medical supplies is low on quantity or nearing its expiration date. Their current way of identifying the stated problem earlier is by calculating each medical supply manually once in two weeks time. The current manual approach has no way to provide its user with some kind of notification or alert indicating the medical supplies that needs to be resupply immediately. Failure to do so can result in critical medical supplies depleted.

Another problem that can be spotted is the efficiency in calculating the stock manually. This problem is the result of the first problem whereby the staffs need to calculate each medical supply manually just to know what need to be resupply. They have to check hundreds of medical supplies just to know how much stock left in their storeroom. Of course, this process is time consuming and its efficiency is questionable.

Last but not least is the flow of information within departments of URMC. This is actually a general problem that affected all URMC departments since all of the processes were done manually. For example, within inventory and pharmacy department, whenever patients comes up to dispensary section to collect their medication, the pharmacy staff needs to prepare the prescribed medication and after that report directly to inventory staff so that the stock could be updated. Sometime, the information flow between the pharmacy department and inventory department is not synchronized and organized well enough which can cause unavailability for some medical supplies. The staffs also have to move back and forth to pass or gather information for one task.

2.5 Alternative Solution

After identifying existing problems and examining the current business process, our project team have investigated some possible approaches as the appropriate solutions. Each approach has different advantages and disadvantages, and knowing what they are will give us a better image to decide the best choice. 2.5.1 Web Based Application Nowadays, web applications are getting popular due to the flexibility of the browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The web-based application can be applied to enhance existing system since it is changed the existing manual system into computerized system. By applying web-based application, the programs installation in each computer is not required. Thus, there will only one computer that has the systems installation while the rest will only access the system through main computer. 2.5.2 Windows Based Application The windows-based application can also be used to improve existing system from manual-based into computer-based system. It sometimes could be useful for a high complexity system. In windowsbased, each program has to be installed in every clients computer. Hence, it rises the system response time. 2.5.3 Purchase commercial software The commercial software to manage the clinics process is available widely in the internet. They provide various features varying from the basic features to complex and advanced features. However, generally they offer a general clinical function that is bundled into software.