Prescribe Inpatient Meds for Pharmacy to Dispense

Who / when: the physician prescribing for an admitted patient from the chart, and the pharmacist who supplies the ward. The thing to understand here is that there is no separate “inpatient drug list” hiding behind the ward. When a doctor prescribes from the chart, Veona creates one prescription on one formulary, runs one interaction check, and posts the doses onto one MAR (Medication Administration Record). The chart, the pharmacy and the ward all read that same record — they are never parallel lists that someone has to reconcile by hand. We’ll follow Dr. Bello prescribing for Mr. Okafor on the ward, and Tunde in the pharmacy.

1. Physician — open the inpatient’s chart and go to Chart → New Order, choose “Medication”, and search the formulary for the drug (only enabled formulary items appear). Because Veona knows this patient is admitted, the order is written as an inpatient order against the ward.
2. Physician — set the dose, frequency and duration. The DDI (drug-drug interaction) and allergy checks run as you add the drug, exactly as they do for an outpatient — physician-first, at order time. If a severe interaction or allergy fires, the order is held until you override it with a reason and your eSign PIN (see Hard-Stop a Risky Order and Override With eSign).
3. Physician — press “Sign & Send” and enter your 6-digit eSign PIN (your electronic signature, separate from your password). Veona creates the one canonical prescription and posts its scheduled doses onto the patient’s MAR straight away.
4. Physician — to see those doses, open the chart’s medication view (or the ward’s Ward → Medication Administration board) — the due doses are already there, drawn from the prescription you just signed. There is nothing further to push to the ward.
5. Pharmacist — where the medicine has to be supplied from the pharmacy, open Rx → Dispensing Queue, select the inpatient prescription, and dispense it with FEFO batch selection exactly as for any other order — see Prescribe, Dispense by FEFO and Draw Down Stock. The supply draws down stock; the doses the nurse gives are recorded on the same MAR.

Note

One record, three viewpoints. The prescription the physician signs, the doses on the ward MAR, and the line the pharmacy dispenses are all the same underlying record. Change or stop the prescription and every viewpoint reflects it — there is no second list that can quietly fall out of step.

Caution

A controlled drug prescribed for an inpatient still carries its controls all the way through: the ward nurse cannot give it without naming a witness on the MAR, and the pharmacy records every controlled supply in its witnessed register. The convergence onto one record is what keeps the running balance honest from prescription to bedside.

What happens next

From here the inpatient pathway splits cleanly. The nurse administers each due dose at the bedside, signing — and, for controlled drugs, witnessing — on the MAR: see Administer, Hold or Refuse Medication on the Ward MAR. The pharmacy supplies the ward and the supply draws stock down by FEFO, just like an outpatient dispense. Because everything sits on the one prescription, the medicine the doctor intended, the dose the nurse gives, and the stock the pharmacy issues can never disagree.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Hard-Stop a Risky Order and Override With eSign
• Next: Prescribe, Dispense by FEFO and Draw Down Stock · Administer, Hold or Refuse Medication on the Ward MAR
• Related: Carry a Dispense Through to the MAR · Administer, Hold or Refuse Medication on the Ward MAR