The introduction of patient's own drug scheme in a specialist palliative care inpatient unit

Patient's own drug scheme (PODS) involves the use of patient's own medicines that they have obtained in the community setting and bring to the hospital. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of PODS implementation in an Irish specialist palliative care inpatient unit. Administration time for drug rounds (PODS vs drug trolley); experience of nurses, doctors, and pharmacists using PODS; and the cost effectiveness of PODS were evaluated. Time spent on PODS-related tasks was documented for 1 month; focus groups were undertaken with nursing staff (n = 9), pharmacy staff (n = 3), and doctors (n = 5) to determine their experience of the PODS; and a cost/savings analysis was conducted. Although a minimal difference in the number of minutes to administer drugs per patient was noted, using PODS enabled simultaneous administration of drugs that potentially reduced drug round time by up to 75%. Nursing, doctors, and pharmacy staff demonstrated a good understanding of PODS and identified many benefits (and few disadvantages) for the organization, patient, and team. The PODS resulted in a median pharmacy drug cost saving of approximately €77.50 ($86.79) per patient. The introduction of PODS was successful and is being implemented across all units of the specialist palliative care inpatient service.