Optimization of the demand estimation in hospital pharmacy

Traditionally, the problem of hospital pharmacy management of inventories has been paid little attention. This problem is treated in this paper as a work-in-progress. The main objective is to estimate the demand of stock in different services of the hospital pharmacy, obtaining a reliable method for future planning and management. A better demand estimation implies a better management and therefore, significant savings in inventory costs. Some methods will be described an applied to series of data from the Hospital Universitario Reina Sofia (Córdoba). The results will be compared in order to establish the best strategy to implement.