Using OpenEMR Inventory-Dispensary Module for Non- Pharmaceutical Products
... without Conflicting With NewCrop eRx
... being edited as of 26 oct 20- HT...
Introduction
OpenEMR's Inventory/ Dispensary module was originally created to serve a standalone practice that carried its own inventory of drug and non- drug products. Fortunately, many or most of the medication- oriented data fields are only used if the product is to be tracked, so they can be used for non- drug products.
OpenEMR's NewCrop eRx interface co-opts several of the Prescription and Medication modules' activities so that when they are selected, NewCrop is automatically invoked. However, that can be worked around using the Charges Panel to order an inventory product for an individual patient.
Preparation/ Prerequisites:
Warehouses
1. Decide if you will be using a different 'warehouse' for different types of products.
2. Set them up if desired:
- A. From Main menu: Administration/ Lists - select Warehouses (below)
- B. Enter your desired warehouse name(s) in 'Title' column
- C. a mnemonic lowercase alphabetical string with no spaces or special characters, as the 'ID'.
- D. A consecutive 'Order' value with enough roob between each ones to add others later if needed
- E. Remember to make the column 'Active'
3. In Admin/ Globals/ Appearance - must have 'Use Charges Panel' activated
The Inventory workflow
... is basically:
- A. Initially enter one 'lot' of a product into the inventory and enter the product characteristics
- B. Tell the Inventory module the 'lot' characteristics (expiration date etc)
- C. When the product is entered you write a 'prescription' for that product in the pt's charges panel
1. Add a product to the inventory
Menu: Inventory/ Management
Top portion of dialog:
Many of these values are not required unless you want to track products by them.
(explanations and bottom part of dialog follow)
Name - of product
Active - yes
Allow* Multiple lots: if your inventory will contain > 1 lot of this product at a time
- combining lots: if you will track all the lots as one collection instead of separately; will allow filling an order from multiple lots
NDC number - optional* any arbitrary free- text industry product indicator
- is a handy place to indicate the price of each dose
- Max length 20 characters including spaces.
Drug code: optional - e.g., the CVX code, if applicable
On order: optional - how many lots are on order
Limits: optional - but are used for low inventory notifications.* per the tool text, "minimum/ maximum reasonable inventory limits", of individual warehouses and all combined (Global).
** can customize these medication- related lists in Administration/Lists/ -
Form - of the med; eg tabs, suspension, units etc.
Pill Size and - Units: together designates strength of the med. E.g., 1mg per cc
Route of administration
Relate to - optional relates the product to any of the installed codesets; e.g., ICD10 or CPT codes# click in the text area to bring up a code search dialog.
- select the installed/ configured codeset/ code this item is related to.
(Bottom part of the 'add meds' dialog.
Templates.
this specifies the different prescriptions in which this product will be ordered.* Name: of the med/ product
- Schedule: how many of the units entered above, are to be given in this prescription.
- Interval: aka frequency that med will be given in this prescription
- Qty: how many doses in this prescription.
- Refills: in case of childhood immunizations, might want to make it cover how many doses in the whole series so you don't have t keep reordering this med each visit.
- Standard: standard price; must manually enter each price
- this module does not pull its price from the one entered into the service code entry
Click 'save'
This completes the first 'Add Drug' entry.
- If interrupted, before this point the product can be reopened by clicking on the drug name. (rectangle below)
- In a normal inventory entry workflow the next panel would appear automatically.
- If interrupted at this point, click on 'New' (oval below) to add the new lot being logged into the PharmDisp.
2. Next (or resumed) panel: connecting lot info to the product supply
Lot number - needed to keep lots separate and track levels and expiration etc
Manufacturer - optional
Vendor: optional; must be in Address Book, specialty selected as 'Vendor'
Warehouse- if have any additional ones configured
'on hand' - read- only display of stock level
Transactions - what we're doing to this lot
'purchase' from vendor to add to stock
'return' to stock
'transfer' to a different warehouse
'distribution' not sure
'adjustment' correct inaccurate supply values.
Date - of logging in the product lot
Quantity - number of packages in the lot.* If this were pharmaceuticals, it would be, for eg, 5 multidose vials in the lot.
- all the individual dosage information was entered in the 1st step;
- this talks about how many of them are in the lot.
Total Cost - of the whole lot (just use numbers)
New inventory entry complete
(pay no attention to the non- matching product names...)
3. Writing a 'prescription' for the patient.
- Open the pt record
- Open the pt record
- Open the encounter where the product is ordered.
- Main menu: Fees/ Charges
-
- Add prescription (oval)
-
- Enter product in 'drug'
-
-
- can simply write a scrip for anything
- or select from the pharmacy (arrow)
-
-
- the product 'order' is inserted with everything filled out.
-
- Click 'Save and Dispense' button at top
- Click 'Save and Dispense' button at top
... and there is the product order in the patient's Prescriptions listing
NOTE: It will not appear in Current Medications widget because that is strictly controlled by NewCrop.
When you go to this patient's NewCrop screen you'll see it was imported but doesn't participate in NCrop's med auditing
OpenEMR also has standardized inventory reports located at 'Main Menu: Reports'