Electronic Dispensing Tool
Electronic Dispensing Tool
In Namibia, Togo, and 10 other countries, MSH pioneered the Electronic Dispensing Tool, a cutting-edge information system that uses the patient as the focal point and captures critical information needed to make decisions about an individual’s drug regimen, as well as stock inventory and aggregate patient statistics.
How it’s used
Ensuring that the correct medicines and amounts have been dispensed to patients and carefully monitoring patients’ adherence and response, and possible side effects are critical functions of a clinic. In general, a patient’s medicine history is seldom maintained, and those histories that are kept are not readily available to the dispenser, making it difficult to monitor patient care and compile service statistics needed to support management decisions. The Electronic Dispensing Tool helps maintain basic patient profile information, medicine history, and other data that are essential for the dispenser to know at the time of dispensing.
Advantages
- Maintains a list of all patient visits and products dispensed to patients.
- Has “batch”/lot and expiry date tracking for the medicines and supplies being dispensed.
- Includes adherence report complete with eight indicators validated by WHO.
- Includes three different calendars for use (English, Ethiopian, Nepali).
Limitations
- Is not a comprehensive clinical tool, since it only has basic patient and inventory information related to medicines being dispensed.
- Not web-based.
Where it has been applied
- East Africa
- Latin America & the Caribbean
- Southern Africa
- West Africa
Language availability
- English
- French
Related Content
Webinar Series: Promoting Local Ownership and Sustainability of Uganda’s Supply Chain System through the 10-Year Roadmap
Digitalization of Uganda’s National Health Supply Chain System
