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Inpatient Issue Discharge Medicines

Dr M H B Ariyaratne edited this page Jun 7, 2026 · 2 revisions

Issue Discharge Medicines

Issue Discharge Medicines dispenses take-home (discharge) medicines to an inpatient at the retail rate with no inward service charge. Medicines come out of your logged-in pharmacy's stock.

Path: Pharmacy → Inpatient Medication Management → Issue Discharge Medicines Also from: Inpatient Dashboard → Pharmaceuticals & ConsumablesIssue Discharge Medicines Also from: the discharge prescription — see Inpatient EHR — Discharge MedicationsCreate Discharge Issue Bill Privilege: Pharmacy Discharge Medicine Issue


When to use this

Use this page when a patient is going home and you are dispensing their discharge (take-home) medicines, charged at the retail rate with no inward dispensing service charge.

For medicines given during the ward stay, use Direct Issue to BHTs from Pharmacy.


Two ways to start

A. From the discharge prescription

  1. Open the patient's Inpatient DashboardDischarge Medicines.
  2. Tick the discharge medicines to dispense (one, several, or all).
  3. Click Create Discharge Issue Bill.
  4. Each ticked prescription becomes an issue line and this page opens with the lines pre-filled — batch chosen automatically (earliest expiry first) and quantity calculated from the prescription.

B. Entering medicines directly

  1. Open Pharmacy → Inpatient Medication Management → Issue Discharge Medicines (or the Issue Discharge Medicines button on the Inpatient Dashboard).
  2. Search for the patient by name, BHT number, or PHN and select them.
  3. Search for each medicine, enter the quantity, and click Add.

Reviewing and settling

  1. Check each line's batch, expiry, quantity and rate. Expired or soon-to-expire batches are tagged.
  2. Adjust the quantity of any line if needed (the value updates automatically).
  3. Use Remove to drop a line, or add more medicines with the search box.
  4. Click Settle to finalise the issue.
  5. Print the bill in the configured format.

Use New Bill to start over for another patient.

The Settle button is shown only to users with the Pharmacy Discharge Medicine Issue privilege.


Prescription → Dispensing report

When you arrive from a discharge prescription (option A), a Prescription → Dispensing report appears above the bill items. It lists, for each prescribed medicine:

Column Meaning
Prescribed What the ward team prescribed
Dispensing as The actual item resolved for dispensing
Required Quantity calculated from the prescription
Issued Quantity actually placed on the bill
Status Colour-coded outcome (see below)
Note Explanation / what to do

Status meanings:

Status Meaning What to do
Issued in full (green) The full required quantity was placed on the bill Nothing — ready to settle
Qty defaulted (amber) The prescription was incomplete, so the quantity was set to 1 Check and correct the quantity before settling
Partial — low stock (amber) Only part of the required quantity was in stock Issue the rest from another batch/pharmacy, or omit
Not available (red) No stock in your pharmacy, or the medicine could not be resolved Add it manually from another source, or omit

If any line needs attention, the report opens expanded with a warning banner. Review it before settling so a patient is not sent home short of a medicine. Medicines that could not be issued are listed here with their status.


How the batch and quantity are chosen

  • Pharmacy: always your logged-in department. A pharmacist in the Main Pharmacy issues from Main Pharmacy stock.
  • Batch: the earliest-expiry batch that has enough stock (first-expiry-first-out). If no single batch covers the full quantity, the earliest batch is used for the available amount and the shortfall is flagged in the report.
  • Quantity: calculated from the prescription's dose, frequency and duration. If the prescription is incomplete, the quantity defaults to 1 and is flagged for you to correct.

All of these are editable on this page before you settle.


How discharge issues appear in reports

Discharge medicine issues are counted like inward medicine issues in every report — including the interim bill, BHT summaries, inward charge-type breakdowns, and pharmacy and stock reports — without the service-charge margin. Cancellations and returns of a discharge issue are tracked as discharge cancellations/returns.


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