E-drug: Re: Drug inventory control software (contd)
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I completely agree with the contribution of Daniel VandenBergh. The needs
of medical stores concerning computer software for inventory control,
financial management, client analysis, etc. is not different from the needs
of other enterprises working with commodities that can expire (e.g. food
distributors). The available commercial packages that often link inventory
control with financial management and ordering procedures are well adapted
for use in medical stores. As this software is reliable (large number of
users) and updated on a regular basis the development of special software
for medical stores is not easy to justify. It is likely to be just a
waste of money.
There are examples of medical stores that have purchased these packages for
small and medium sized enterprises and the experiences are positive.
Erik Schouten
MSc Public Health in Developing Countries student
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
e-mail: erikschouten@compuserve.com
[Note from moderator: I agree to some extent. However, some of these
packages are too focused on profit margins, discounts etc. The problem
Botswana is facing however, is that they built a very sophisticated medical
stores, fully computerised (e.g. radio controlled picking), and chose a
package more for financial control than for warehouse management. When we
did the audit last year, it was not possible for us to get a reliable list
of the stock situation. Disastrous. So one has to know what one wants, but
that's nothing new of course. I understand that in Botswana's case e.g. an
American package which I think is called Dallas would have been more
suitable. One thing I would like to stress after having seen a couple of
packages lately, is the need for ensuring that drugs can be sorted by ATC
codes and assigned DDDs. This is the most widely used statistical unit for
measuring/comparing drug consumption and supported by WHO. Kirsten Myhr]
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