Improving the Primary Care Centers' Medication Sample Program

As the new operations manager of Delaware Valley Hospital's primary care centers began her assessment of current processes, she identified the following problems in the medication sampling program: compliance with current processes was poor; there was no consistency in accepting samples; signing samples in and out was done randomly; sample cabinets were haphazardly kept; expired samples remained in the cabinet; providers removed samples from stock and dispensed to patients without signing them out; and there was no labeling of samples prior to distribution.