Browsing by Author "Pernilä, Oona"

The health and social services reform will enter into force in its entirety from the beginning of 2023. With the reform, the responsibility for organizing social and health care will be transferred from municipalities to the responsibility of 21 wellbeing services counties. At the time of writing this thesis, the changes to the medical legislation brought by the reform have not yet been published. Hospital pharmacies and dispensaries take care of Finland's public pharmaceutical services. The tasks of public pharmaceutical services include pharmaceutical logistics tasks, non-industrial pharmaceutical manufacturing, and the preparing of medicines, as well as pharmaceutical expert tasks and services.The aim of this study is to find out the opinions of current hospital district managers, medical directors, and hospital pharmacists about how future pharmaceutical services should be organized in the upcoming wellbeing service counties. The study was conducted using an electronic structured questionnaire, which was sent in October 2021 by e-mail to the heads of all Finnish hospital districts, medical directors, and hospital pharmacists. The survey also included Åland and the Joint Municipal Authority for Social and Healthcare in Central Uusimaa (Keusote). The questionnaire consisted mainly of Likert-scale questions, but the questionnaire also had open answer fields to which respondents were able to add comments and refine their answers. The questionnaire was evaluated by several experts and piloted by two experts. The questionnaire consisted of seven different sections, which addressed the number and concentration of hospital pharmacies and dispensaries, clinical pharmacy services and medication safety, pharmaceutical purchasing and formulary, automation and information systems, co-operation in wellbeing service counties, and pharmaceutical services in a state of emergency and limited resources. The overall response rate to the survey was 50% (n = 34/68). 79 per cent (n = 19/24) of hospital pharmacists and 35 per cent (n = 15/43) of managers and medical directors responded to the survey. Responses were received from all hospital districts, Åland and Keusote. Based on the responses, it is hoped that the activities of hospital pharmacies will be mainly concentrated in wellbeing service counties so that the services would not move too far. Co-operation in individual pharmaceutical service activities could take place in collaborative areas or nationwide. The current number of hospital pharmacies was thought to be sufficient, but the operation of individual dispensaries could be closed or transferred to the administration and coordination of a hospital pharmacy in the area. It is hoped that clinical pharmacy services will be increased, and medication safety officers are desired for at least all wellbeing service counties. It is hoped that purchasing will be centralized nationwide, especially for expensive and rare pharmaceuticals, but the procurement of pharmaceutical formularies could be done by collaborative area, and the formation of the formularies could be done by wellbeing service county or collaborative area. It is hoped that automation and technology will increase in pharmaceutical services and that information systems will become more integrated. Increasing co-operation both between hospital pharmacies and within wellbeing service counties, for example between community pharmacies, was advocated. In the future, resources should be focused on pharmaceutical services personnel and their training, as well as on automation and technological solutions. It is hoped that the crisis preparedness of the pharmaceutical services will be increased in the future.