Pharmacist’s software design aids mass dispensing clinics

When Kansas City, Missouri, pharmacist Russell Andrews first got involved in emergency-planning activities in his state, he said he “did not sleep well.” Andrews, a member since 2002 of his state’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) advisory council, recognized several problems with models designed for distributing medications from the stockpile—a national cache of antiinfectives, chemical antidotes, vaccines, and medical supplies that can be deployed within 12 hours to anywhere in the United States or its territories. Existing SNS dispensing models, he said, used paper-based systems and relied heavily on having a large number of health care professionals at point-of-dispensing (POD) sites. “You’re probably not going to find 50 clinicians to run a clinic in the event of a mass disaster,” Andrews said. “Most of those people are going to be tied up in the care of patients in hospitals and clinics or they might be sick themselves.” And, he added, relying on paper forms is an inefficient process to store and track patient information.