Ramathibodi Hospital

Today we split into 3 groups and my group visited Ramathibodi Hospital in Bangkok. Ramathibodi is a tertiary care hospital that has 1,200 beds. The pharmacy department is split into four departments; compounding (both sterile and non-sterile), dispensing, clinical pharmacy, and drug supply management.

We first visited the sterile compounding department where we learned that their process is much like the one we have in America except for the manual process that occurs. Next we visited the inventory department which looked like a large warehouse of drugs. We learned that as a hospital their formulary has 60% brand drugs (which they call "original") and 40% generic drugs. They often analyze their formulary to attempt to get the most effective drugs that are also cost-effective. We learned that they focus more on the "accurate property of the drugs" rather than how much they cost, which is why they have 60% brand name drugs.

Next we visited an outpatient dispensing pharmacy which was driven mainly by robots. Upon entering the prescription into the computer a label prints and the technician puts that in a basket, then places the basket onto a sensor that magnetically labels the basket as that specific prescription. The

basket is then placed on a conveyer belt to be brought to the filling technician, then to the pharmacist who places the basket on another sensor to do the final check of the prescription with the drug and label.

Finally we visited the chemotherapy compounding department which was very similar to America. We learned that patients can request to pay more for a more personalized and comfortable chemo area. Also, there are volunteers that knit hats and donate them to the patients who are losing their hair.