Effect of Information Systems for Pharmacy Management System - Case Study Example

?Chapter One INTRODUCTION Most studies have tried to explain the relationships between firm performance, competitive advantage and investments madein information systems. Literature on information systems offers useful insights on the relationship competitive strategy and information systems; however, it is still not clear how information systems contribute to firm performance and competitive advantage (Gottschalk 2007). This dissertation will examine how, from a comparative and interpretive perspective, how IS contributes to the specific responses and competitive actions of the firm. Additionally, it looks at how the resulting impacts, affects the performance of the firm. This study suggests that the explanation as to how information systems contribute to the performance and competitive advantage of the firm may lie within the specific responses, and competitive actions that the firm participates in or the role information systems play in the competitive dynamics of the firm (Eisenhardt 2004). Kenya and most African countries have one thing in common; they all have a large health provision gap, which is growing each year. This provision gap is prevalent mostly in the urban areas. This arises due to rural-urban migration since young men, and women move to urban areas in search of employment. This movement to urban areas has led to the over stretching of the available and limited health facilities. Due to this, many dispensing chemists that at times act as clinics have sprung up in almost every estate, surburb in the city. The health provision gap can be supplemented through such dispensing chemists and pharmacies. Moreover, many households cannot afford to pay medical bills at the hospitals and see this as a cheaper way of meeting their medical needs. Capital Chemist is one of those dispensing chemists that operate within Nairobi with the aim of making medical supplies such as drugs, and equipment readily and cheaply available. It also offers services such as laboratory tests. It aims to support and reduce the health gap that exists in Kenya, especially the urban areas. Capital Chemist has over 50 employees and has been operating in the pharmacy market in the country for the last 5 years. Its drug dispensing division is one of the most profitable of the overall venture. Despite increasing competition from other dispensing chemists and pharmacies, Capital has maintained a strong position in the drug dispensing market thanks to its attractive, long operating hours, and the variety of drugs and medical equipment it offers. Even though the popularity of Capitals’ long working hours and a variety of services, Capital has managed to keep and attract more customers due to the strong customer relationship it has. It has also been able to achieve this through its high level of customer support. 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The Capital Chemist, herein referred to as ‘The Chemist’ is a pharmaceuticals drugs and medical equipment retail chain in Nairobi, Kenya. A registered pharmaceutical retail company was incorporated in 2007. It has branches in several parts of the city. Its presence manifests itself in almost every estate, in the city. Administratively the chemist is served through all its 12 branches across the city. It has its headquarters in Nairobi’s Central Business District. These branches aim at meeting the goals, and mission of the company. All operations are regulated and controlled by the headquarters in Nairobi. It aims at providing quality, readily available medical drugs to its client when needed and whenever needed. Synchronizing the management and operations of these branches to ensure efficiency in service delivery, and profitability has become a nightmare. Currently each of the 12 branches has its own management system that is limited to point-of sale management only. The other process such as inventory management, price control, and diagnosis are manually handled using spreadsheets. Given that daily sales and purchase quantities are high and are forecast to increase, tracking and maintaining accurate, and well-formatted records is a major headache. The fact that these chemists are centrally managed, the current reporting techniques they employ are not efficient. These shortcomings cause major headaches for the superintendent chemists. Due to the intense paperwork in the current system, searching for records is a challenge, while file retrieval takes long. Therefore, there is a need to improve the current system by providing an Information System that is easy-to-use, facilitate faster data capture, accurate compilations, consistent of analysis, efficient, reliable, and safe data and information storage and and access on an as-needed-basis. The IS should also facilitate documentation of results to ensure meaningful records are created, recording and editing, accessing stored information easily, saving and deleting, printing and presentation. Information resulting from this enhanced process is critical for decision making by the management and in improving service delivery to customers. According to Sommerville (2006), computers cannot create business strategies by themselves; however, they can help managers in understanding how certain decisions, policies, and strategies contribute to the firms competitive advantage and performance (Project Management Institute 2008). 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT Being a retail business, the quantities being purchased and sold are very high, and the prices are not definite thus tracking and maintaining correct records of sales and purchases manually is a major headache. Majoirty of the customers visiting this chemist are low income eaners living on less than a dollar per day, thus cannot, in most cases afford doctor prescribed and recommended drugs; they would therefore, prefer purchasing alternative cheaper durgs. In fact most of them haggle or bargain when purchasing drugs; thus, having a rigid sales sytems makes it difficult for The Chemist to manage the sales process efficiently and provide accurate sales reports. Most of the customers visiting this chemist do not have drug prescription notes thus do not know which drug to buy. This, therefore, raises a diagnosis headache for the superintending chemist. In order for chemists to offer efficient services to its customers and ensure easy decision making by the administration, a web based chemist management system is required. The system should allow data entry with ease, accurate processing, and storage of complete information in an online database and output clear and detailed reports. 1.3 OBJECTIVES Investigate the operations of the current Chemist Management System and identify possible improvement points, shortcomings, and challenges. Gather requirements of the system from staff, management, and customers to produce a requirement's document addressing the need of The Chemist. Produce a system design for the proposed project and decompose it into subsystems or modules that will solve the challenges identified. Code and test individual components of the project Integrate the components, and modules tested until the entire system is working. Assess the system against the requirements defined under control and supervision of The Chemist, and in the collection environment Present and demonstrate the project to the panel of examiners. 1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT The system will have the following functionalities: Equipped to handle different medical products such as drugs and medical equipment Enabled to allow the chemist superintendents’ to make changes in the products details Permits multiple users to be able to access the database at any given time Secure web interface that will allow easy navigation of various parts of the system after confirming the login ID and password Update/add/delete functionalities to edit the fields in the database to allow for the most recent information about the products Produce statements of transactions for the management and the individual chemists upon request or after specified periods of time 1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT This project benefits The Chemist in the following ways: Superintending chemists will be able to give quality service to those clients who do not have prescriptions by utilizing the automated diagnosis module. This will also allow, them to prescribe the correct drugs and alternatice drugs to customers, as well as prescribe the correct dosage. It will also allow for efficient handling of inventory by careful tracking of sales and purchases. Database integration will allow for easy reconciliation of inventory sales and purchases (Umar 2006). The chemist superintendents, and the administration will be able to get quality and update reports for sales, purchases, and stock whenever and wherever they require it. This is what differentiates it from the currently existing systems. In the future, The Chemist can hope to integrate an SMS functionality that will allow customers to input their symptoms and suggest for them the appropriate drugs or action to take. Additionally, the system can be scaled to allow clients or customers to benefit from SMS prompts reminding them on the recommended times of taking their drugs and for refills whenever their dosage is over. The project, in its web-based nature will empower the staff of The Chemist with anytime, anywhere access. This affords them the capability to work anywhere, anytime. It will also enhance communication between the different branches and the headquarters. Chapter Two 2 Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Literature review summarizes, interprets, and evaluates existing literature in order to ascertain the current knowledge of the subject. Therefore, it is not a book review but rather a survey of a particular subject. The main principle of literature review is to provide an overview of published research on a particular topic. In addition, literature review is usually organized thematically, such a different theoretical approaches, methodologies, or specific issues or concepts involved in the topic. Hence, the contrasting approaches, perspectives, theories, methodologies and findings can be analyzed to examine the strengths and weaknesses in previous research. In general, there are three types of sources for literature review, which are; primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Primary sources are based on direct, un-interpreted records of research subject; for instance, minutes of meeting records of an organization. As for secondary source it uses books, articles, and other writings by researches and scholars in reporting their work to others. Lastly, tertiary source refers to the encyclopedias, textbooks, indexes, and other reference sources. In developing this project, a combination of three types of sources is used. I have however used primary sources more widely. The internet plays a major role in gathering and retrieving all the relevant information. 2.2 Facts and Findings The practice of chemists and pharmacies has undergone dramatic changes over the years. Most chemists are shifting from using handwritten methods towards implementing computerized ordering and dispensing systems. In this project, two existing systems were chosen and critically studied. These systems are categorized base on the company that developed the system, features of each system and advantage of each system. 2.2.1 Misys pharmacy system 1 Background This system was developed by MiSys healthcare system based at Raleigh, North Carolina. Misys healthcare systems develops and supports reliable, easy-to-use software and services that at enables care givers to manage complex systems. 2 Features of the system Misys pharmacy management system has five distinguishing features, which are: Order entry and management, which is prescription enabled, and user-friendly user interface. Dispensing and inventory management integrated with prescription services. Reporting through the use of a relational database structure which will allow for both standard and ad hoc reporting on a real-time basis This system can automate up to 500 users and supports oracle database and thus it is estimated to cost about $100,000 which is approximately 8 million Kenya Shillings. 3 Advantages of the system This system provides reporting of medication across the entire continuum of care. It plus the pharmacy in control of drug inventory and the documents throughout every step of dispensing 2.2.2 RxCare plus system 4 Background RxCare Plus is a subsidiary of QS/1 Data system. RxCare plus was developed by J M Smith Corporation, which was founded in 1944 and is now almost worth more than 3 billion dollars. 5 Features of the system RxCare plus has four distinct features: Prescription processing is also capable; this makes prescription filing easy, quick and effortless. Additionally, it enables third part billing via the internet. It is also possible in updating drug records. The system also handles accounts receivables and disease management Table 2-1: comparison between MiSys pharmacy system and RxCare plus system Misys pharmacy system RxCare plus system Tracking and reporting x Dispensing medication Prescription processing Receiving stock x Drugs billing x Disease consulting Ordering stock x Improving the efficiency of service delivery and the quality of reporting is what this system is all about. That is what the project is geared towards, hence the need to provide an industry-leading chemist management software solution that the chemists can rely on. Chapter Three 3 METHODOLOGY This project will employ a very structured approach to software development, the waterfall methodology. An initial meeting with the client will take place to define and document the system requirements in detail prior to beginning the computer –programming phase of this project. This ensures that there will be no delays or unexpected expenses once programming has begun. In "the waterfall" approach, the process of software development is sub-divided into various, separate, and consecutive phases. These phases cascade and are consecutive such that the preceding phase can only begin once a defined set of goals, milestones, and deliverables for the previous phase are achieved. 3.1 Data Collection Tools Research is based on gathering information. The following describes various methods of gathering data and information that are to be used. The preferred ones are those that are reasonably priced and straightforward. 6 Use of available documentary evidence It is not necessary to re-invent the wheel. The aspect of a dispensing chemist is not new so large amounts of research material and lots of reports exist. The most relevant statistics can often be found in the appropriate department or planning office. The quality can vary, and needs to be assessed. 7 Observation Observation includes all forms of direct presence in the project area. “Field visits” are most often quick visits to the field will be made with the aim of gaining personal impressions on which to found recommendations. To make the tool more efficient a checklist is prepared. This helps in structuring the finding 8 Interviews The use of interviews is a common way of collecting information. Like observation, the interviews are structured, depending on the type of information that is required, and the planning process itself. Important questions will be properly formulated beforehand. This increases the level of accuracy and helps make the use of the data more consistent. 3.2 Analysis Tools Analysis is composed of the following: Conducting fact-finding measures, designed to ascertain the requirements of the systems end-users. These include interviews and visual observations of the work on the existing system. Tools to be used in the system analysis include. 3.2.1 Data flow diagrams: These are graphical representatives that describe the flow of data from one entity to the other. The data used in each entity and its functions. Data that can be used in one entity and send to another entity is also described. 3.2.2 Use case diagrams: These are diagrams that are used to represent the processes that will be involved while the user is accessing information from the system. 3.3 Design tools In the design process, three tools are used Data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagram and use-case diagrams. 3.3.1 Data flow diagrams: These are graphical representations that describe the flow of data from one entity to the other. The data used in each entity and its functions. Data that can be used in one entity and send to another entity is also described. 3.3.2 Entity relationship diagram: These are graphical representations that describe the relationship between the various entities that will be used in the project. Each entity will be described and its functionality lay out. 3.3.3 Use case diagram: These are graphical representations that describe the flow of functions between the data flow and use. Describe how the functions flow between various entities involved in the project. Describe usage of data and function. 3.3.4 Sequence diagrams These are graphical representations that describe the sequence of actions from one state to another. They are used to show the options on the available information available 3.4 Development Tools Web-based applications can be developed on various operating systems including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. This project is to be done on Windows 7 operating system. 3.4.1 Computer hardware tools For the required development design software to be installed, the computer must be able to run it adequately i.e. the computer must have 1.6-GHZ or more Pentium D processor with IGB or more of RAM. Once this is checked the following can be installed to provide the required software tools utilized in web-based application development. 3.5 Implementation Tools The developed system will be implemented alongside the current flow of events at the Capital chemist. The two are to run simultaneously for duration of thirty days. After the proposed system is tested with real-time data, debugged, and embraced, it can be an integral part of the entire chemist management system. This project will employ a very structured approach to software development, the Waterfall Methodology. An initial meeting with the client will take place to define and document the system requirements in detail prior to beginning the computer-programming phase of this project. This ensures that there will be no delays or unexpected expenses once programming has begun. In "The Waterfall" approach, the whole process of software development is divided into separate phases. All these phases are cascaded so that second phase is started as and when a defined set of goals is achieved for first phase. The system design documents will be used, the work will be divided in modules, and coding will start. The following tools will be used for coding: a) PHP Server Scripting Language b) MySQL Database Management System c) Apache Web Server d) Net beans 7.1 Editor e) Adobe Creative Suite During system development functional units will first be developed. These units will then be integrated to come up with the new system. Each unit will be developed and tested for its functionality mainly to verify if the modules meet their specifications as outlined in the design specifications. All the information shall be stored in a database hosted in a central server, where the contents can be accessible to the user via the internet. 3.6 Time Schedule The project is expected to be within October 2013 to late January 2014. Gantt chart to be used for the proposed application ACTIVITIES Oct 14 Oct 18 Oct 21 Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 15 Nov 18 Nov 22 Nov 25 Nov 29 Dec 2 Dec 6 Dec 9 Dec 13 Dec 16 Dec 20 Dec 23 Dec 31 Jan 6 Jan 11 Jan 13 Jan 17 Feasibility study                       Analysis and design                       Interface and database design                       Coding                       Report design and creation                       Validation and testing                       System implementation                       Documentation                       Chapter four 4 System analysis 4.1 Introduction System analysis involved reviewing the current system to get better understanding of the whole chemist transaction procecss from the time new items are ordered, received, stored, and sales are made. Various system users including the superintending pharmacist and the chemist administrator are interviewed and monitored to get an overview of how they under take the day to day steps of managing the chemist. Several regular customers are also observe as they seek The Chemist’s services, and their opinion is also sought regarding how they think the system the chemist uses could serve them better. 4.2 Current System Currently, Capital chemist does not utilize any computerized system for any of its processes. The system and the entire management process are entirely manual. This has proven very costly, time consuming, disorganized, and really difficult to manage especially in terms of accountability and auditing. The following processes occur in the chemist: 4.2.1 Ordering of stock items The superintending chemist is in charge of preparing an order note that affect the process of replenishing low stock and purchasing new stock. This process is entirely manual since the order request is hard-typed by the pharmacist. 4.2.2 Stock-take-inventory management This is also the responsibility of the superintending pharmacist and is also entirely manual. The pharmacist has to manually count the stock, make comparisons with the previous records of stock to ascertain the current stock balances. He/she also have to manually keep track of drug expiring dates which is very tedious and often costly. 4.3 Requirement Analysis In the analysis, I developed some questions that will guide me in soliciting the user requirements. The questions and their answers will guide me in the development of the system. The questions also pinpoint the main functionality of the system and the user interface expected. The user requirements can also be acquired through direct observation. This way uses observation on how the process of relying information works. 4.3.1 Questions 1. What kind of services does Capital chemist offer to its customers? 2. What is the average number of customers that visit the chemist daily? 3. How many employees does the chemist have? 4. Does the chemist have any management systems or any computerized system? 5. If yes, how does the system operate and what are it features? 6. What are the challenges that the system encounters? 7. What challenges do the customers encounter while purchasing drugs? 8. What challenges do the system users or staff operating the system experience? From the analysis, it was clear that the current manual system employed is far from efficient and that there was an urgent need for a computerized management system that would seamlessly integrate all the chemist operations seamlessly. 4.4 User Requirements 4.4.1 Functional requirements Enabled to allow the chemist pharmacist to make changes in the products details Permits multiple users to be able to access the database at any given time. Secured web interface that will allow easy navigation of various parts of the system after confirming the user login ID and password Update/add/delete functionalities to edit the fields in the database to allow for the most recent information about the products Produce statements of transactions for the management and the individual chemists upon request for specified periods of time Should be able to print sale receipts Perform diagnosis given symptoms and suggest the disease suffered and recommend remedy Generate sales, receipts, and inventory reports 4.4.2 Non functional requirements The application should be able to run at all times. Information should be available at any one particular time. The response time should not be long; information should appear to user within minimal or no time lags after request. The system should be delivered within the stipulated time duration. The application should be developed to run on any Operating System, such as Windows XP/7/8, Mac OS, or Linux.. Chapter Five 5 System Design The new system is aimed at creating a complete chemist management system that automates the sale, receipt, inventory, reporting and diagnostic processes. The design of this new system is therefore in a way that allows for the integration of all these modules seamlessly. The system users will have different access privileges and levels depending on the role that they will play in. for instance, the superintending chemist will be responsible for making sales, performing diagnostics, receiving new and returned items if any and at times preparing reports, therefore, he/she would be granted access rights to the modules associated with his roles. The chemist administrator on the other hand would have access to all aspect of the system given that he is the systems super user. He is the only one with the right to change or alter any users’ access rights, set their passwords, and /or maybe delete them the system. Chapter 6 6 System Implementation 6.1 Coding and Testing The system was coded in three phases; database phase, main system phase which was further subdivided into the main modules, and the user interface phase. The three phases are described below together with the programming language used in each phase. 6.1.1 Database phase The database was designed and coded using MySQL. XAMMP software was used for the design of the database. XAMMP is a platform that combines many different software packages into one package. XAMMP provided the platform on which the database was created. One of the software packages that come with XAMMP is PHPMyAdmin. PHPMyAdmin was used to provide the graphical interface for managing MySQL. 6.1.2 Main System Phase The main system is an application that runs on any browser in any operating system platform. The programming language of choice was PHP which is a server scripting language that used to implement the server side of the system. The system was divided in to two major fronts, the server side and the client side. As stated, I implemented the server side of the application using PHP. The client side which represents the use interface phase was implemented using JQuery, CSS, and basic HTML. For the purpose of enhancing security, the system was developed based on a framework that utilizes the MVC pattern. This is the popular PHP framework known as Codeignitor. The application was developed in Netbeans, which is an integrated development environment. This was used to edit, compile, debug, run and test the code via the web browser, in this case Mozilla Firefox 12. 6.1.3 Connection phase This phase was used to connect the main system to the database. The connection was done through use of PHP programming language. PHP programming language was chosen because of it high compatibility with MySQL. Further, PHP is a high-level programming language that supports Objected Oriented Programming, which was ideal in this case given the robust nature of this project. The database is created on MySQL, so PHP was used as a bridge and communication link between HTML (used in the main system) and MySQL (used in the database). The PHP scripts are used to fetch the data from the database which is then converted to java bits on arrival at the application. In addition to PHP, JSON was also used to facilitate the transaction/communication process of fetching data to and from the server. 6.1.4 User interface phase The user interface was coded using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These languages combined offers the programmer the capability of providing sleek, user-friendly, and dynamic user interface that is easy to navigate through. Chapter 7 7 Limitations, Recommendations and Conclusions 7.1 Limitations The limitations of the proposed system are as follows; The major limitation of the system is that it is only accessible via web browser and it is expected to be implemented on the clients machine where its files can be at risk of being tampered with. This is because the system will be hosted on the client’s machine local server whereby the system files can be affected. If at all it was executable or hosted on a remote server then risk or limitation would be at a minimum. Time factor also narrowed the scope of the application. With more time, the application would be able to incorporate other features that would endeavor to improve the bottom line of the business. One of the features is that would have been incorporated is seamless integration with an SMS server such as the Ozeki server that would enhance communication between the chemist and the customers especially in facilitating reminders for the time when one is supposed to take drugs. This would benefit both the customers and the business in terms of fostering better relations. 7.2 Conclusions This project benefits the chemist in the following ways: superintending pharmacist will be able to easily give quality service to those clients who do not have prescription by utilizing the automated diagnosis module. This will also allow them to prescribe the correct drugs to customers and prescribe the correct dosage. This is what differentiates it from the currently existing systems. It will also allow for efficient handling of inventory by careful tracking of sales and purchases. Database integration will allow for easy reconciliation of inventory, sales, and purchases. The chemist pharmacist and the administration will be able to get quality and updated reports for sales, purchases, and stock whenever and wherever they require it. In future, the chemist can hope to integrate an SMS functionality that will allow customers to input their systems and suggest for them the appropriate drugs or action to take. Read More