Development of an evaluation toolkit for pharmacy management software by users

Abstract

Introduction: Agood pharmacy practice requires quality standards for service. Cureently all phacmacy services is transacted via electronic systems. But there is not any standard or guidline for evaluation and selection of a good pharmacy information management software. Aim: The purpose of this study was designing and development of an evaluation toolkit for pharmacy management software for pharmacists and software designers. Methods: This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of implementation method, which was done cross-sectionally. The statistical population of the study is the technical and managerial characteristics of internal and external pharmacy management software. The data collection form (checklist) made by the researcher will be used for collecting data through containing various information components of internal and external pharmacy management software based on input, processing and output criteria. The validity of the content will be assessed through the opinions of supervisors and consultants and other experts and specialists in computer science and professors in the field of health information management and pharmacists using CVR-CVI model. The study data will be collected by referring to different websites, identifying the types of software and examining their information features, which will eventually be included in the checklist. Results: Based on the results, the tools for evaluating pharmacy management software were classified into 7 general criteria: general criteria, sales management, warehouse management, reporting, patient information, technology and financial management, which contained a total of 40 different criteria. The highest criteria that existed among different software with a frequency of 75.4% belonged to the criteria of inventory declaration and supply chain management, which out of 65 software studied, 49 software had this criterion. Conclusion: Based on the results, Intelligent Medical Software software with 31 features out of 40 criteria was the best software with a frequency of 81.6%.