Pharmacy Department | United Christian Hospital

About Us

The United Christian Hospital (UCH) Pharmacy provides pharmaceutical services and patient care to the population in the Kwun Tong District. The department comprises more than 130 staff and fills over 2,000 outpatient prescriptions per day.

We strive to deliver pharmaceutical care in a safe, efficient and cost-effective manner for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve the patient's quality of life. This is achieved in collaboration with other healthcare professionals, and with the involvement and support of the community as partners in health.

Our service has also expanded to patient care areas where clinical pharmacists ensure each patient’s medications are individually assessed and optimised.

Looking ahead, we shall further expand our ward pharmacist services and pharmacist-managed ambulatory care clinics. We are also introducing smart technology to improve efficiency and enhance the medication collection experience by implementing remote ticketing, drug delivery and paperless dispensing services.

Inpatient Service

24-hour pharmacy service for inpatients
Top-up Service
Provided every working day for wards to replenish ward stocks, including commonly prescribed drugs, e.g. antibiotics, intravenous fluids, oral medications, and injections, to reduce turnaround time for drug delivery.
Ward Stock Requisition Platform
Available for wards to request ward stock replenishment via the intranet website at any time to achieve real-time replenishment. This could reduce manual entry errors and improve workflow efficiency.
Medical Gas Supply and Quality Control
To maintain continuous supply and ensure quality control testing of medical gases including compressed gas cylinders, liquid gas manifolds and liquefied oxygen.
Antidote supply in collaboration with the Hong Kong Poison Information Centre
To handle toxicology drug enquiries and supply the Levels 1-3 antidotes to all Hospital Authority’s hospitals upon requisition and manage antidote inventory.

Outpatient Service

Dispensing and medication counselling service for patients from, specialist outpatient clinics， hospital discharge, staff clinic and overnight service for the Accident and Emergency Department.
Drug Refill Service
This service aims to enhance medication safety by reducing the risks of storing excess medications at patients’ home and drug misuse. Pharmacists regularly review patients’ clinical conditions and their prescriptions by performing medication reconciliation and instil drug knowledge for better compliance. Telephone call follow-up or face-to-face consultations may be arranged if necessary.
Medication Delivery Service
Patients can arrange medications to be delivered to their homes or at designated addresses without the need to wait at the outpatient pharmacy after medical consultation. Telephone calls or tele-pharmacy follow-up can be arranged for more comprehensive medication counselling upon request.
Paperless Pharmacy
The implementation of paperless pharmacy workflow improves patients’ medication collection experience as they are no longer required to hand in their prescriptions in person at the pharmacy. Medication safety can also be enhanced with “scan-to-check” and “scan-to-issue” functions so that dispensing items can be verified with the patient's identity.

Aseptic Compounding Service

Pharmacy Intravenous Admixture Service
A wide variety of aseptic products is compounded in the newly renovated aseptic suite which fulfils the Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme standards. These include parenteral injections and infusions for paediatric wards, high-risk medications for the operating theatre, fortified eye drops and intracameral injections for ophthalmic patients and skin prick test reconstitution.
Total Parenteral Nutrition
Tailor-made total parenteral nutrition admixtures are compounded for neonates, children and selected adults. Pharmacists collaborate with doctors and dietitians to review the nutritional needs of patients and recommend the appropriate regimen with appropriate stability and compatibility.
Cytotoxic Drug Reconstitution Service
This service is provided to relevant specialties in UCH as well as Tseung Kwan O Hospital, which is also within the Kowloon East Cluster. The preparation procedures are designed to ensure the sterility of products and to protect staff and the environment from exposure to cytotoxic and biologic drugs.

Clinical Pharmacy Service

Clinical pharmacy service includes ward service and ambulatory care clinics with tele-pharmacy.
Ward pharmacist service
- Ward pharmacist service for medical, geriatric and emergency medicine wards aims to identify potential drug-related problems and enhance patients’ understanding of their medications during the transition of care.
- Scope of service includes:
  - Discharge prescription screening and medication counselling
  - Advance prescription service
Ambulatory care clinics
- Pharmacist-managed clinics aim to enhance patients’ drug knowledge and compliance, identify drug-related issues and provide monitoring for adverse reactions. Patients from the following specialties are served:
  - Anticoagulation
  - Gastroenterology
  - Hepatology
  - Nephrology
  - Oncology
  - Paediatric asthma
  - Psychiatric
  - Rheumatology
Specialised pharmacy services
- Paediatrics
  - Paediatric pharmacists review drug profiles of patients and provide drug recommendations for physicians at the general paediatric wards, paediatric intensive care unit, neonatal intensive care unit and special care baby unit.
- Oncology
  - Oncology pharmacists review the dosing and appropriateness of chemotherapy prescriptions and provide thorough drug counselling for patients who are newly started on chemotherapy.
- Renal
  - Renal pharmacists provide drug counselling and education for patients with chronic kidney disease, polycystic kidney disease, new transplantation and those undergoing dialysis. They also participate in ward rounds to offer drug use advice, handle drug information enquiries and manage drug-related problems.
Tele-pharmacy service
- Tele-pharmacy service was introduced to provide drug counselling for selected patients to optimise post-consultation medication compliance and reinforce proper use of devices.

SMART Technologies

Automatic Medication Unit Dose Dispensing System (AMUDDS) improves dispensing efficiency and accuracy.
Medication Detection Machine counter checks the unit dose dispensed by AMUDDS to enhance medication safety.
Radio-frequency Identification technology manages ward stock inventory by real-time monitoring of batch number, expiry date and quantity.
C-cabin machines sort and count tablets and capsules according to prescription order data. They support automatic dispensing and can simultaneously count up to 54 drugs.

2023

The Kowloon East Pharmacy Department was awarded with the Outstanding Team Award 2023
A Prospective Trial conducted by the Department was awarded the Best Poster Display Award in the Hospital Authority Convention 2023

2022

Pharmacy Involvement in the UCH Paediatric & Adolescent Medicine Dermatology Health Care Team, which won the Hospital Authority Outstanding Team Award in 2022
The KEC Vaccination Task Force achieved the Hospital Authority Merit Team Award 2022

2021

Setting Up of BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Compounding Centre in 2021
Ms. Kathy Mak Lai Ki (Department Manager of KEC Pharmacy), Mr. Kam Kin Wai (HHH Pharmacist In-charge) and Mr. Mak Chun Keung (TKOH Senior Pharmacist In-charge) were invited to RTHK to share their initiatives on SMART technologies in 2021

Recent Research Papers and Presentations Published in Scientific Journals and Conferences

Sin, Conor Ming-Ho et al. "Physicians' and nurses' perceptions of the factors influencing the implementation of paediatric clinical pharmacy services in Hong Kong: a qualitative study." European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy published online first: 04 August 2023. doi: 10.1136/ejhpharm-2023-003796
Lau, Chun-Hang et al. "Impact of Pharmacist Intervention on Unplanned Hospital Readmission Rate for Patients Admitted for Cardiovascular Diseases in Emergency Medicine Ward: A Prospective Trial." The Hospital Authority Convention 2023
Sin, Conor Ming-Ho et al. "Clinical pharmacists' perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to the implementation of paediatric clinical pharmacy services in Hong Kong." The International journal of pharmacy practice vol. 30,5 (2022): 466-471. doi:10.1093/ijpp/riac058
Sin, Conor Ming-Ho et al. "Factors influencing the implementation of clinical pharmacy services on paediatric patient care in hospital settings." European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy vol. 29,4 (2022): 180-186. doi:10.1136/ejhpharm-2020-002520
Yip, Wai-Ying et al. "Effectiveness of a multi-disciplinary care model in improving arthritis patient’s medication adherence and disease activities." International Conference of Chinese Rheumatologists (ICCR) 2020
Sin, Conor Ming-Ho et al. "The impact of computerised physician order entry on prescribing in general paediatric units in Hong Kong." The International journal of pharmacy practice vol. 29,2 (2021): 164-169. doi:10.1093/ijpp/riaa018
Chu, Wilson Wai Shun et al. "The Impact of the Workflow Re-Engineering of Outpatient Operation In a Hospital Pharmacy: A New Model with Advanced Screening by Pharmacist." Journal of health informatics vol. 4,4 (2020): 1-5.