APOM-project: a first study of pharmacy organization and management

In 1994, a Ph.D.-study started regarding pharmacy, organization and managem ent (APOM) in the Netherlands. The APOM-project deals with the structuring and steering of pharmacy organization. This article describes a summary of the theoretical background of the project and the empirical results of a pi lot study (n = 24). No generalization to the population of pharmacies in th e Netherlands was made. Three mixes of objectives in pharmacy organization were theoretically postulated; the product mix, the process mix, and the cu stomer mix. Mainly, the purpose of the pilot study was method selection. Ad ditionally, it was studied if thought and action of pharmacy managers corre sponded with the empirical pharmacy mixes. Two methods were selected to be applied in a survey. Thought and action did not correspond for most pharmac y managers. Thought related to customer and product mainly, and action rela ted to process and customer mainly.