Interest of analysing data gathered by a chemotherapy drugs compounding real-time video control solution for pharmaceutical technicians training and monitoring

For the last three months, in our cytotoxic drug reconstitution unit, every compounding procedures performed by pharmaceutical technicians are guided and controlled by the real-time video control solution Drugcam. The aim of this work is to spot and study the different manufacturing practices to qualitatively and quantitatively improve our production and to automate the technicians training audits.

We extracted, visually inspected videos and analysed data from preparation processes of bevacizumab, cetuximab and pemetrexed of the last three months. Quantitative (preparation time, peeling time and purging time) and qualitative (our training audit grid is used to analyse the videos) data have been used.

Preliminary results are based on 136 videos of Bevacizumab preparations into infusion bags. The median preparation time is 4 minutes 48 seconds. We could not notice any correlation between dosage and preparation time. There is a 1 minute and 50 seconds difference between the fastest pharmaceutical technician and the slowest one. The median peeling time of medical devices is 39 seconds. In 50 % of the cases the peeling is executed throughout the preparation process. The purging median time is 13 seconds (for the pumps’ tubular). In 99 % of the cases, the technicians do not change the compress during the process. The peeling wastes are always stored and eliminated with a tray at the end of the preparation. No asepsis flaw, volume error or medicine error have been noticed.

Peeling medical devices before the preparation leads to a significant time saving. Consideration is being given to using an universal extension and the multi conditionning.
The video control tool brings a performance improvement based on data massification (multicentric data available soon) to define predictive performance parameters. Drugcam Control is currently in active development to ease future training audits.