9.01. Dispensary mode

Dispensary mode allows you to issue medicines to individual patients. It is ideally suited for pharmacies, clinics, hospital dispensaries, and facilities where medicines are supplied to individual patients.

In dispensary mode:

Prescription data can be entered into mSupply including:

Patient details

Prescriber details

Prescribed items

Item directions which can be quickly selected from standard abbreviations, and edited as necessary. Item directions can be printed in languages other than English.

Labels can be printed with:

Item description and quantity issued

Patient name

Prescriber name

Directions

Institution name

More…

Patient histories are recorded, allowing repeat prescriptions to be:

Duplicated

Repeated

Prescription payments can be recorded

Use of Dispensary mode depends on your mSupply registration type. Contact Sustainable Solutions if you wish to upgrade your registration. Regardless of mode, each user can only use those functions for which they have permission. In client-server versions of mSupply, different users can be logged in in different modes at the same time, allowing you to dispense to patients and supply wards, stores, clients or cost centres simultaneously. Users whose permissions allow them to operate in either Store mode or Dispensary mode may change from one to the other by pressing Ctrl+2 on the keyboard. Re-entry of the user's password is not necessary.

Activating dispensary mode

Prior to version 3.5 you controlled dispensary mode for each user, and had to choose File > Edit users… Now it's a setting for a store.

Click Special > Show stores…

Double-click on the store you want to set to dispensary mode.

Select Dispensary in the drop down list next to the store's code field.

Log out of the store and log in again to activate dispensary mode.

Setting dispensary mode preferences

Click Admin > Preferences > Dispensary mode to set preferences.

Important preferences to consider:

Ensure the Show direction entry in dispensary box is ticked.

Specify what information will be printed on dispensing labels.

Specify if you want a receipt to automatically print on labels.

Specify if you want mSupply to auto-generate patient codes (alternatively, the user must enter a unique code for each patient).

Specify if a prescriber must be entered for each prescription.

Specify if you want to be able to receive payments from the prescription window.

What changes in dispensary mode?

Most of the things you can do in store mode are also available in dispensary mode. The main differences are:

The Customer menu becomes the Patient menu; and

The Customers tab on the navigator becomes the Patients tab, which has a slightly different selection of icons

The windows displayed are appropriate for dispensing medicines to individual patients. For example, a patient's dispensing history is maintained and you can also record patient notes (e.g. allergies).

Note that a facility using dispensary mode can distribute stock to both patients and customers (e.g. hospital wards, outreach programs), and can still handle customer requisitions.

Previous: 9. Dispensing Goods | | Next: 9.02. Prescription entry