An Analysis of the Pharmacy Department at Saint Mary's Memorial Hospital

[From the Introduction]

Today, industrial engineering is rapidly becoming an integral part of many hospital organizations throughout the United States. The techniques of this profession can be applied to all systems within the hospital, one of the most important of which is the pharmacy department. It is within this department that the problem for study in this thesis was chosen.

I. THE PROBLEM
Statement of the problem.
This thesis is concerned with a study of the pharmacy department of Saint Mary's Memorial Hospital, located in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Purpose of the study.
The main purpose of the study was to discover how the operation of the pharmacy department under question could be improved, with an emphasis on the proper utilization of the non-pharmacist personnel. There were two constraints to the problem, those of service and cost. Service had priority over cost; or, in other words, proper service should be provided, even if additional cost is incurred in providing it.