The government has decided to automate the activities of pharmacies attached to government hospitals by putting in place an online centralised Drug Distribution Management System (DDMS), which will help the authorities track all drug management activities from procurement to distribution.
The software will help every hospital under the Directorate of Health Services as well as the Directorate of Medical Education prepare their annual indent for medicine.
The indent can be scrutinised by the designated officials at the State and district-levels and forwarded to the Kerala State Medical Services Corporation (KMSCL) through the DDMS for initiating procurement.
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The software has been programmed to note the batch number, manufacturing date, expiry date and the quantum of medicines procured by the KMSCL through tender processes, and check the shelf life of the medicines before acknowledging the stock. Medicines thus procured will be issued to hospitals in phases on First Expiry-First Out (FEFO) basis, so that the quantum of date-expired drugs can be reduced.
The hospitals too can utilise DDMS to register the medicine stock and on FEFO basis, distribute the drugs to wards and hospital pharmacies.
Apart from the medicines supplied by the KMSCL, the details of drugs locally purchased by the individual hospitals too can be entered into DDMS so that the local purchase details of every government hospital across the State can be monitored better.
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The new software will help the authorities monitor online, the stock of drugs in each hospital pharmacy and collect details on the slow-moving or fast-moving drugs so that these drugs can be moved to pharmacies before they go out of stock.
Freezing distribution
The software will enable KMSCL to freeze the distribution of any drugs the quality of which may have been compromised. Health Minister K.K. Shylaja said that the Kerala State IT Mission had examined and certified the software to ensure its credibility.