Prescribe, Dispense by FEFO and Draw Down Stock

Who / when: two roles, deliberately kept apart. The prescriber (a clinician) writes and signs the prescription; the pharmacist dispenses it. A prescriber never dispenses and a pharmacist never prescribes — the dispensing screens don’t even appear in a prescriber’s navigation, and the prescribing surface doesn’t appear in a pharmacist’s. The handoff between them is the prescription itself, and the payoff is that stock on hand drops by the exact quantity dispensed, automatically, the moment the pharmacist confirms — no separate stock entry to remember. We’ll follow Dr. Bello, who writes the order, and Tunde, the pharmacist who fills it.

1. Prescriber — from the patient’s chart, open Chart → New Order, choose “Medication”, search the formulary (only enabled formulary items appear) and add the drug. Set the dose, frequency, and the quantity to dispense and the duration. The DDI (drug-drug interaction) and allergy checks run as you go.
2. Prescriber — press “Sign & Send” and enter your 6-digit eSign PIN (your electronic signature, separate from your password). The signed prescription is released to the pharmacy. If a severe interaction or allergy fires, the order is held until you override it — see Hard-Stop a Risky Order and Override With eSign.
3. Pharmacist — open Rx → Dispensing Queue and select the prescription that has just arrived (you can also reach it from the Pharmacy Dashboard).
4. Pharmacist — the dispense screen (“Draw down stock against a prescription — FEFO batch selection”) lists each line with its drug, sig, and quantity, and a “Batch (FEFO)” selector. FEFO (First Expire, First Out) means Veona has already picked the lot with the earliest expiry date that still has stock on hand, so the oldest usable stock goes first and nothing is left to expire on the shelf.
5. Pharmacist — set the “Counselling” note and, if you are substituting a different brand or generic, the “Substitution” field, then press “Confirm Dispense”. In the very same transaction, Veona Stock decrements the chosen lot by exactly the dispensed quantity.
6. Pharmacist — you are taken straight to the dispensing-label print, pre-filled for this prescription. Print the patient label as the last step and hand the medicine over.

Tip

The “Batch (FEFO)” selector is pre-filled, but it is yours to override. If the earliest-expiry lot is physically out of reach or you are working from a different shelf, pick the correct lot — the draw-down then comes from the lot you actually dispensed, so the ledger always matches the shelf.

Caution

eSign before release is enforced. A prescription is not in the queue until the prescriber has signed it with their eSign PIN — a pharmacist never dispenses an unsigned order. That signature is what makes the prescription a clinical document the pharmacy can act on.

What happens next

The dispense is recorded against the prescription and the stock movement links back to it, so on hand always traces to a real event — there is no way for the count to drift from what left the pharmacy. If a dispensed item later needs to come back, returning it to stock reverses this draw-down exactly; see Return Medication to One Inventory. For an inpatient, the dose doesn’t go out at the counter — it flows onto the ward’s medication record instead; see Carry a Dispense Through to the MAR. And as lots are drawn down, any item that crosses its reorder level is picked up automatically — see Auto-Reorder Stock When It Runs Low.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Hard-Stop a Risky Order and Override With eSign
• Next: Carry a Dispense Through to the MAR · Return Medication to One Inventory
• Related: Prescribe Inpatient Meds for Pharmacy to Dispense · Keep a Witnessed Controlled-Drug Register