Drug Count Settings

The ALIS Drug Count is a feature that provides an effective way for your team to keep electronic records of changes to resident medication order quantities. This guide covers all the settings available in ALIS to tailor the Drug Count to your organization's specific needs.

Access Drug Count Settings 

The Drug Count is an entitlement-based feature and requires an ALIS member to enable it. For assistance, contact your Account Manager or the ALIS Customer Success Team.

Once enabled, navigate to Settings > Medications Settings > Drug Count tab. You may need to click the Enable button to get started. 

The below sections of this guide contain descriptions for each setting shown in this tab.  

Display order quantities on the Perform Drug Count page

This setting is Enabled by default. When it remains enabled, the existing drug quantity displays on the Perform Drug Count page: 

Packed Order Drug Count

This setting defaults to Disabled. It manages drug inventory tracked for medications provided by the pharmacy in pre-packaged units, which often contain partial doses. A common example of this would be half pills added to a bubble pack. In this example, the most sensible count is the number of bubbles/packages used, not the number of whole pills.

• When you plan to count orders using this method, relevant orders must be also set as "As 1 Packed Unit". This must be changed in the Packaging field of the Scheduling/Administration & Dosage section when adding, processing, or editing an order. 
• The Dose field should also reflect the Drug Unit of Measurement contained in each bubble pack. In the example here, there are 0.5 tablets in each dose. The Drug Count will treat each package bubble (each half tablet) as 1 unit to be counted.

For more information on how the count is impacted by Packaging 'Based on Dose' or as '1 Packed Unit', read this Enable medications for the Drug Count guide.

Create Separate Counts By

This setting defaults to Community, which creates one counting event to be done for all orders in your community for which you track quantity. This option is typically appropriate for smaller communities.

You can also separate the counts by Med Cart Name, Floor Name, Hall Name, or Narcotics vs. Non-Narcotic Drugs: 

• Med Cart names are configured in the Medications tab of Medication Settings, and are then assigned on a per-resident basis. To read more about Medications Settings, read this article: Medications Settings. 
• Floor and Hallway names are configured in the community's Floor Plan. To read more about setting up your Floor Plan, read this article: How to Configure a Community Floor Plan
• Narcotics vs. Non-Narcotic Drugs creates generic lists: one list for Narcotics and one list for Non-Narcotics. The medications that appear on the Narcotics list are determined by the "Narcotic" Medication tag. 

Split Counts between Narcotics and Non-Narcotics

If you choose to separate counts by Med Cart Name, Floor Name, or Hall Name, you still have the option to split counts by narcotics vs. non-narcotics. This setting defaults to Disabled, but should be enabled if you plan to count non-narcotics and wish to count them separately. 

Require Two-Person Verification for Refills

This setting defaults to Disabled. When enabled, all Add Refill and Adjust quantity transactions require two staff members to verify the action before the transaction can be saved. This workflow includes both narcotic and non-narcotic medications and supports additional oversight and accountability for medication quantity changes.

1. The first verification (Person 1) is auto-completed by the currently logged-in user. 

2. A second staff member (Person 1) must then be selected from the staff dropdown and confirm the transaction using their password. 

Once verified and saved, these transactions cannot be edited or deleted. Both staff members who completed the verification display in the Staff column of the Manage Quantity grid and Drug Count Transactions Report. 

Note: Recording a Drug Destruction in ALIS always requires two-person verification.

Drug Destruction Methods

The options listed here determine the options available when destroying a medication quantity. The default options here are 'Mixed with cat litter or coffee grounds' and 'Transferred to medical waste container'. You can +Add New Method or Disable existing options to customize this list. 

Related Articles:

• Drug Count Reference Guide
• How to Enable Medications for the Drug Count
• How to perform a Drug Count 
• How to manage Drug Quantity

For more assistance: 888.404.ALIS (2547)  |  support@go-alis.com