10.01. Dispensary mode

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

The particular benefits of using Dispensary mode include:

• 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 do not need to be printed in 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

1. Click Special > Show stores…
2. Double-click on the store you want to set to dispensary mode.
3. Select Dispensary in the drop down list next to the store's code field.
4. Log out of the store and log in again to activate dispensary mode.

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.

In mSupply a “name” can be a customer, a supplier, both or neither. A “customer” can be anyone you supply goods to - e.g. another organisation, or a ward in your hospital, or a patient.

Some of the menus in dispensary mode have different names. For example, the Customer menu becomes the Patient menu.

But most of the things you can do in store mode are also available in dispensary mode. In fact, the navigator looks much the same. The only difference is the Customers tab, which is renamed to the Patients tab and has a slightly different selection of icons:

The functionality of the common icons is the same as in store mode and applies mostly to customers not patients (a dispensary mode store can still distribute stock to customers (not patients) and handle customers' requisitions). For details of those functions, see the other sections of this guide.

The windows displayed are appropriate for dispensing medicines to individual patients.

A patient's dispensing history is maintained and you can also record patient notes (e.g. allergies).