Pharmacy Setup 2.1
- Cathy Allison
Pharmacy Setup Screen
This page is also still valid for versions 2.2.0, 2.2.1, and 3.0
A pharmacy in VetView is an internal collection of settings that allow you to divide your pharmacy functions based on requirements, rather than necessarily a physical location. Our hospitals separate their pharmacies based on the hospital structure, satellite locations, field services, CDM machines, external scripts or outside prescriptions, and any other settings where some features are needed but others are not. This also allows you to precisely control the Rx number for each pharmacy, and to restrict certain privileges to specific pharmacies.
The Prescription Queue system also allows you to display the status of prescriptions sorted by pharmacies as a kiosk view, sharing only the relevant information.
List of Pharmacies
At the top of this screen is a list of pharmacies. For testing purposes we have these named after the functions they are controlling, but some of the most common pharmacy names used by our clients include:
- Main/Central Pharmacy
- Small Animal Hospital
- Large Animal Hospital
- CDM Machines
- Field Services
- Student Practice Clinic Dispensary
- Outside Prescriptions (Retail Services)
- ICU / Overnight Pharmacy
A pharmacy in VetView can be a logical location instead of a physical location. For example, if your main pharmacy also has a separate compounding pharmacy inside of it, you can create that is a distinct logical pharmacy inside Vetview. This can help you enforce which pharmacy any specific drugs are requested to.
This list also includes a brief overview of some of the most important settings, such as the inventory area associated with the pharmacy, the DEA number, and the current status.
Main Pharmacy Settings
A hospital can have as many pharmacies as needed to accommodate the workflows used within the hospital. Click on the Add button to create a new pharmacy.
A blank Pharmacy Setup window will appear.
The Save button for the pharmacy will appear after the Control Drug Machine header, at the very bottom of the screen.
Enter a Name for the new pharmacy. This is the name as it will appear on all screens within VetView, and also be used to search for prescriptions.
The Inventory Area is optional but will allow you to automate much of the prescription process, such as tracking lot numbers and counts of your products. The Inventory Location is the sub unit of the inventory area from which this pharmacy will draw its products. We recommend having a unique inventory area for each location where drugs are issued, as well as each CDM in your hospital, to keep accurate inventory counts.
The DEA Number is the number that will be printed on any prescription, which may be required by state law for certain prescriptions. Not every pharmacy requires a DEA number, especially if they are not issuing controlled substances. Check with your state pharmacy board for questions.
The Active Flag is whether this pharmacy is available to issue new prescriptions in the system. Pharmacies cannot be deleted within VetView, to preserve historical data for old prescriptions. When the active flag is turned off, the pharmacy will not be available on the Prescription Request form, nor the Pharmacy Fill Queue, but will still remain a valid option on the Prescription Search Screen, and on all patient records for prescriptions which were issued under it.
Dispensary indicates that an abbreviated workflow is available on the Patient Record for issuing clinicians, that does not require the prescription to go through the pharmacy queue. This can be useful for pharmacy locations with a limited number of products, primarily your student practice clinics or field services.
Prescription Fill Options
This section of the pharmacy gives options that allow you to tailor the workflow to your state's pharmacy laws.
| Field/Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto Assign Rx Number | This option will automatically grab the next Rx # sequentially from a pool of reserved numbers in the database. If this option is not turned on, the pharmacy tech will need to manually enter in an Rx # for each prescription. |
| Current Rx# | The next Rx # available, sequentially, from the database. For a new pharmacy, if your state law requires a certain number of digits in each Rx #, you can chose to start at a specific increment, such as 1001. |
| Enable 7-12 Refill Levels | Adjusts the available refills on the Prescription Request Form. For states where the maximum allowed number of refills is 6 or fewer, this option should remain disabled. For states or provinces where as many as 12 refills are allowed per prescription, this option can be turned on. Refills can still be further restricted as needed based on drug class for both settings. |
| Expiration Length | The default expiration date of the prescription on the Prescription Request Form. For some states, this may be six months, in other states or provinces, it may be up to 12 months. In the example above, it is set to 7 days as the daily fill pharmacy is not intended for external prescriptions or long term refills. |
| Enable Pending Prescriptions | This option will allow a clinician to enter in a prescription that will become available to fill after a certain date, such as a planned discharge date, on the Prescription Request Form. The prescription can be prescribed in the future in as many days as entered in this field. |
| Auto Cancel Unapproved Prescriptions | For pharmacies that have a large number of prescriptions that are requested but not approved by clinicians, this option will check for these prescriptions and automatically cancel them, to reduce the number of prescriptions on the Pharmacy Queue. This number may be lower depending on you pharmacy's best practices, such as once every 30 days. |
| Enable Pickup Workflow | Adds an extra step after Issued to require authorization for pickup. |
| Require Day's Supply | Turns on the required field Day's Supply on the Prescription Request Form. This means that the requesting clinician must include the day's supply field, for the total number of days the prescription is intended to cover. Required in some states and provinces, |
| Require Total Quantity | Turns on the required field Total Quantity on the Prescription Request Form. This means that the requesting clinician must include the total quantity of the prescription, not just single dosage and days supply. Calculates automatically. Required in some states and provinces. |
| Enable Dosage Calculator | For practice clinics with students where they are learning to manually calculate dosages, this may be turned off on the Prescription Request Form. |
| Require Dosage | The dosage is an optional field on the Prescription Request Form, but turning this flag on will make it required. |
| Allow Approximate Weights | If a patient has not had a firm weight entered, and the approximate weight flag is turned on, turning off this flag will prevent the prescription request from being submitted until the weight is updated. For pharmacies that handle products that are sensitive to exact weights, this flag should be left off. For pharmacies that handle products where weights can be generalized (e.g. dispensaries and field services) this flag can be turned on. |
Prescription Monitoring Program
For states that are participating in PMP, these are the settings you will need to configure to have the reports sent automatically. Contact your hospital's network manager to ensure that the firewall is open for these communications, and your PMP program manager for the exact server authentication information you need.
PMP Report
The Prescription Monitoring Report has had changes for 2022. Version 3.0 of VetView has been updated to include Partial Fill and other identifiers in this report.
Daily Fill Options
The Daily Fill workflow allows your inpatients to have prescriptions requested and pre-filled, and then delivered to the appropriate wards at the start of the day.
VetView recommends keeping a separate pharmacy for this purpose. Optionally, you can also have a separate prefix for these fills to allow for easier searching and separation on the patient record.
Auto Fill Daily Fills will run an API script overnight for any inpatients with a daily fill, marking the next day's prescription as approved and filled without them needing to be manually handled. A pharmacy tech can then print out the list and labels and physically fill the prescriptions prior to delivery
Control Drug Machine Fills and Orders
Control Drug Machines can be tied into a unique pharmacy to allow for better inventory management and tracking of their fills. VetView supports Cubex, Pyxis, and Omnicell CDMs.
Enable CDM Fills turns on the ability to request a prescription from a CDM and have it filled. A pharmacist can be set to review the prescription after it is dispensed.
Enable CDM Orders, a feature also known as Patient Profiles, allows a clinician or tech to sent a prescription to a CDM and be filled throughout the day. This method can be especially helpful for ICU wards or for units that have a limited number of staff.
Like Daily Fills, you can set up an Alternate Prefix for the Rx#s dispensed through a Control Drug Machine.
Pharmacy Role Link
Pharmacies are tied to specific Hospital Roles. This allows you the flexibility to allow certain staff members to request or approve prescriptions for some pharmacies, but not others.
Drug Class Rx # (Optional)
Drug classes in VetView can be fully customized. In addition to the DEA schedules, you can also create any other kind of category that you need for separating out specific drugs and applying unique Rx numbers or prefixes.
One common example might be having a unique prefix and RX sequence for any drugs used exclusively in research that are not prescribed to any non-research animals in the facility.
Pharmacy Printer Setup
Under the Hospital Setup screen's Printer Setup tab, you can specify which printers are available to VetView for regular reports and for label printing.
In Pharmacy Setup, you can indicate the default printer that prescriptions for each pharmacy should use as well. This means that for pharmacies which are separated by physical space, you can indicate the correct printer for pharmacy labels and the patient reports.
If you do not see the correct printers available, double check the settings under the Hospital Setup Printer Setup screen, and contact your network IT support to verify the desired printers are available as network printers to your VetView servers.
VetView Wiki Most recent releases of VetView: Version 4.2.5 Hotfix (Released 10/31/2024)
To see commonly used terms in VetView Hospital, please visit our Hospital Glossary of Terms.