Prescription Types

Overview

Setup is found in the grey left-hand side bar. Hover over the sidebar with the cursor and the bar will expand. Select Setup to expand a drop-down list of setup pages within PTS. To choose a setup page, select its name from the list.

Prescription types are the fundamental category that a prescription falls into. TTO, Outpatient, Inpatient and Controlled Drugs are examples of prescription types.

Prescription types are also where the prescription-related activities are associated with a prescription and the order in which they should be recorded (i.e. the scanning sequence).

Adding new prescription types

PTS is shipped with a number of popular prescription types pre-configured, such as Inpatient and TTO. If you need to create a new prescription type access the actions menu by clicking on the actions menu icon at the top right of the page, then from the actions menu click the New Prescription Type button.

The process then continues in the prescription type popup.

Editing existing prescription types

To edit an existing prescription type, select the prescription type you wish to amend by clicking on its entry in the list to load the prescription type popup (note clicking the tickbox has another dedicated function).

Prescription type popup

The prescription type popup.

Type details tab

• Description
  A short but descriptive name for the prescription type, e.g. Inpatient, TTO etc.
• Abbreviation
  This can be a code or initials that will appear on the dispensary status screen.
• Items desc.
  Here you can set the terminology used to describe the items on a prescription. The default is "item", but it may be appropriate to change this if you are using PTS for a more bespoke purpose, such as "containers" or "pallets" in a warehouse environment.
• Target completion time
  This is the maximum duration in minutes the prescription type should take to complete the dispensing process. This is the time that controls the various red, amber and green indicators throughout the system such as user views and status screens.
• Amber method
  Here you can set the methodology to determine when the prescription’s progress bar turns from green to amber. The options are either a percentage of the target completion time or when there are a pre-defined number of minutes until the target completion time. The prescription always turns red when the target time is breached.
• Amber % or mins.
  Enter the value before the progress bar turns from green to amber. This will be either a percentage or number of minutes, based on the Amber method setting.
• Record collection?
  If you intend to record the collection of this prescription type, choose Yes. When this is enabled the collection status will change to "Waiting for Collection" when the prescription is completed. Turn this off if you do not intend to record collection or your prescriptions will remain at waiting for collection indefinitely.
• Record delivery?
  If you intend to record the delivery of this prescription type using the Android or iOS PTS app, choose Yes. When this is enabled the collection status will change to "Waiting for Delivery" after it is collected.
• Target delivery time
  The target time for delivery in minutes. This is the time from being started in the dispensary to when it should be delivered to the ward. This time is used to control the red, amber and green indicator on the Delivery Status screen.
• Process Disp. Close after...
  When a dispensary is closed, specified users have the opportunity to record the close of the dispensary in PTS. Doing this will record any "on Dispensary Close" auto-recorded-notes that have been defined for a Prescription Type, and will also record an activity (usually "end of shift") against all users that are recording activities on incomplete status prescriptions. Setting a value in this field will allow a grace period before this procedure is performed. For example you might want to give staff 20 minutes to finish off work on some Prescription Types after the dispensary closes. This setting is particularly useful when the closing of the dispensary is automated.
• Active?
  If you no longer use a prescription type you can make it inactive to hide it from the booking in screen, as opposed to deleting it outright. This way prescriptions previously associated with this prescription type will remain available for reporting purposes.
• Colour
  The colour selected here will be used on the statistical analysis on the home pages and on some of the reports.
• Display on Homepage?
  Specifies whether the prescription type will be displayed or hidden on the graphs on any appropriate user views. When there are more than 6 prescription types to be displayed on the charts for a dispensary, the charts will consolidate them to a single "All Prescription Types" data point rather than show an entry for each type. This is to avoid the charts becoming cluttered.
• Recalc. Target on Start?
  This option only has an effect if the start type for a prescription type is set to either Never Start or Start if dispensary is open. If enabled, the target time of a pending prescription (i.e. one that was booked in when the pharmacy was closed, typically via e-prescribing) will be recalculated when the prescription is started, which is when a pending prescription's barcode is scanned, or it is started on-screen. For example if a TTO has a target time of 120 minutes and was booked in at 03:00, and the dispensary opens at 09:00, the target time will initially be set to 11:00 (120 minutes after open). With this setting enabled, and if the dispensary starts the prescription at 09:30, the target time will then be recalculated to 11:30 (120 minutes after it was started).
• Send HL7 Status Message?
  Where PTS is integrated with other systems, e.g., whiteboards on the wards, this setting allows for HL7 messages to be sent to the other application for this prescription type.
• Regimen?
  When enabled the booking in screen will include a field to enter the regimen to pre-populate user defined batches for a patient. The use of regimens is intended for use within an aseptic dispensary.

The scanning sequence tab

Scanning sequence tab

The prescription type scanning sequence, or activity sequence, is one of the core things you will configure in PTS. Here you will define which activities will be scanned and in what order for every prescription that is booked in. You can set a different activity sequence for each prescription type.

After clicking on the scanning sequence tab you'll be shown the existing scanning sequence for the prescription type as an ordered list of activities, like so:

1. Booking In - "Booking in" is always the first activity.
2. Clinical Check
3. Label Production
4. Dispensing
5. Final Check

The scanning sequence can be as long or as short as necessary - though it must always start with booking in. It's not uncommon for some types to be as simple as:

1. Booking In
2. Prescription Complete

Adding a new activity to the sequence.

Adding an activity to the sequence

To add a new activity to the sequence, click the Add button. A popup will appear for you to select a prescription-related activity as previously defined on the activities setup page (go to the activities setup page first if the activity does not exist yet). Select the desired activity from the drop down list and specify whether the activity should be optional or mandatory by toggling the Optional tick box, and then click OK. An example of an optional activity may be Clinical Checking, which is sometimes already done by the ward before the prescription is booked into pharmacy.

When you're done the new activity will be added to the end of the scanning sequence. It's currently not possible to add a new activity to the middle or start of an existing sequence; you should remove the activities back to the point you want to make changes and then add them back in.

Removing an activity from the sequence

You can remove the last activity from the end of the sequence by clicking the Delete button.

Applicable dispensaries tab

When PTS is being used across multiple dispensaries you can determine which dispensaries may process the prescription type, for example outpatient prescription types may be dealt with exclusively by an outpatient pharmacy and should not appear when logged in to the inpatient dispensary.

To add a dispensary click on the Add button, then select the dispensary form the drop down list and click OK.

To remove a dispensary, click the Delete button.