If you have an in-house Pharmacy, managing and dispensing Rx in the Pharmacy must be simple and systematic. And, Clinicea gives you the option to do so. The Pharmacist can auto-dispense Rx based on batching i.e. FIFO, LIFO, and Batch No. Alternatively, the Pharmacist can choose to disable batching and dispense Rx without any particular set batches. (For more info, please click on How to configure Batching for an Inventory)

For example: Let us assume, a Patient has been prescribed with following medications for a month.

The Patient now comes to the Pharmacy to collect, the prescribed Rx. The Pharmacy stocks different batches of Cetirizine, Oflomac TZ 200mg, Amprez 5mg, and Bupropion. The expiry date for some batches is sooner than that of other batches. The pharmacist wants to dispense medications that are about to expire the quickest. This avoids wastage of medications, as it will be consumed before expiry.

Let us have a look at how Auto-Dispensing works in Pharmacy:

PRE-REQUISITES: THESE STEPS NEED TO BE DONE ONLY ONCE

The Pharmacist will Auto-Dispense the given Rx, as follows:

1. Cetrizine: Batching is not enabled, hence Rx will be stored and dispensed without any regard to Batch.

2. Oflomac TZ 200mg: Batching is set as FIFO. The first batch in, is dispensed first. It ensures older batches are dispensed earlier, preventing them from lying on the shelf and expiring.

3. Amprez 5mg: Batching is set as LIFO. The last Batch is dispensed first. This is useful if the cost of the medication has increased significantly, and expiry is not an issue. You want to then dispense the most expensive batch first.

4. Bupropion: Dispending is set as Batch, ie the Pharmacist will manually select the Batch No: to dispense from.

You can see how to set batching for Inventory by reading this post How to configure Batching for an Inventory.

Now let us have a look at how Auto-Dispensing works in Pharmacy.

Patient has a consultation with the Practitioner. The Practitioner prescribes several medications to the Patient through the EMR. Ex: Cetrizine, Oflomac TZ 200mg, Amprez 5mg and Bupropion. (For more info, please click on How to prescribe Rx)

Consultation is complete, Patient goes to the Pharmacy to pick up the medications. The Pharmacist now needs to Bill and Dispense the given Medication (For more info, please click on How to dispense and auto-Bill a Patient). The Pharmacist will now be using the Auto-Dispensing feature of Clinicea to do easy dispensing.

1. Go to Pharmacy | select Pending from the drop-down menu and click on Search. It shows all prescriptions given by your Doctors which are yet to be filled. | Select the Prescription you want to dispense by clicking on the Patient name. Ex: Luna.

2. A New Bill window will open. The prescribed medications will be auto-added to the Bill. You can add or remove items and change quantity. Doing so does not change the original prescription.

3. Auto-Dispensing for Rx that are not following Batching.
Click on the green D icon next to Cetrizine.

A Bill Item Details window will open. You can view batching details from here. Since batching was disabled for Cetirizine, there are no batching details.

4. Auto-Dispensing for Rx on FIFO or LIFO

Ex: Oflomac TZ 200mg: Batching is set as FIFO. Hence, by default Clinicea picks up the first batch of Oflomac TZ 200mg for Auto-Dispensing.

Ex: Amprez 5mg: Batching is set as LIFO. Hence, by default Clinicea selects the last batch of Amprez 5mg for Auto-Dispensing.

5. Auto-Dispensing for Rx that has to be dispensed Manually.

Ex: Bupropion: Dispensing is set to by Batch. This means you cannot add this item to the bill, till you manually select the batch for Bupropion.

Click on the red D icon again | Select a Batch No. | Click on Save. ex: Batch No. R has been selected with an Expiry Date of 31-Jan-2016.