Unit Inventory Dispensing with Dispensed Unassigned Doses Feature Enabled

When using Unassigned Unit Dosing, facilities prepare doses based on the expected patient volume for the day or week, but these doses are stored without any patient-specific information. The Unit Inventory module allows MAT programs to pre-pour, store, and dispense medications in single-dose units to streamline daily operations and reduce patient wait times when enabling Dispense unassigned doses for expected patients in MAT Settings.

With this workflow, all prepared doses are stored in the safe as Unassigned, meaning they contain no patient identifiers and are not tied to any chart until the moment of dispensing. This method is ideal for facilities that organize medication by strength (e.g., bins or boxes of 2 mg, 4 mg, 8 mg) rather than by patient.

This approach preserves compliance, speeds up dosing, and supports high-volume MAT operations where efficiency and accuracy are essential.

Required Permissions: Super Admins, pharmacists, and users with the Manage Inventory feature have access to this feature. Pharmacists will need Manage Inventory and Manage Pump access (if their facility dispenses medication via pump) for complete usage.

Enable Unit Inventory and Dispense Unassigned Doses for Expected Patients

Before you can dispense unassigned doses, you must enable Use Unit Dispensing and Dispense Unassigned Doses for Expected Patients under Settings > MAT > Location Settings. Click here to learn more.

Dispensing from the Unit Dispensing Tab

1: Unit Dispensing Tab 

The Unit Dispensing tab allows users to pre-pour doses. Click here to learn more.

2: Start the Session 

Before you start the session, ensure you have completed the start-of-day workflow for automatic pump medications. If you are manually dispensing medication, ensure that it's checked out from the inventory. 

1. From the Unit Dispensing tab, click Start on the desired session row.

2. The dispensing window opens, showing all session panels. Each session will show the following sections:

   

   • Session Details: This section displays the start date and end date, the pharmacist assigned to the session, the dispensed amount, the total number of doses, the total number of units remaining, including assigned and unassigned (displayed in parentheses), and a Refresh button to refresh the doses to be dispensed in real time.

     

     • Clicking the Refresh button updates and regenerates the doses for the session. These updates are saved, and when you resume the session, the system displays the latest dose information.
   • Pump Details: This panel appears only when the selected medication is dispensed via the pump.
   • Current Medication: Shows bottles currently checked out to the user. Use the arrows to switch bottles.
   • Expected Doses: Lists all system-generated doses for the date range. Each row includes a Start button.
   • Unassigned Doses: This section shows the Unassigned doses to dispense that were added when the session was created. Each row has a Start button to dispense the doses.
3. Click Start on any row to begin dispensing doses.
4. The system opens the dispensing window for each dose package.
5. Select Dose to begin dispensing.
6. Click Next Doses to move forward to dispense the following doses.
7. As doses are dispensed, the system automatically updates counts in real time. The remaining doses are calculated based on the total number of units remaining for the session.
8. Once all doses are dispensed, the session moves to Ready for Review. The assigned pharmacist can then use the Review Signature button to sign off, which updates the session to Complete and displays their signature. If the pharmacist has Sign with PIN enabled, they may sign using their PIN. Only the pharmacist assigned to the session can complete this step.

3. Current Unit Inventory Tab

This section displays all the doses that have been prepared (pre-poured) during the unit dispensing session. Click here to learn more about Current Unit Inventory Tab.

4: Past Unit Inventory Tab 

The Past Unit Inventory tab display all units that were given to a patient, spilled, wasted, or returned to inventory. Click here to learn more.

5: Dispensing from Queues or MAT Orders

When dispensing from Queues or MAT Orders, the system checks Current Unit Inventory for matching unassigned units and assigns them automatically when possible. This allows facilities to keep doses unassigned until the moment of dispensing.

1. Check the patient in using the Queue and click on the Dispense button.
2. The system verifies whether unassigned units exist that match the dose amount for any take-out doses. Then it automatically assigns each dose to be dispensed.
3. The Dispense From column shows the assigned selection as: Unit Inventory - [Lot Number]. 
   In this example, Unit Inventory - 1000.
4. Click Dose to begin dispensing doses.
5. The system will display the number of remaining doses to be dispensed from the Unit Inventory doses in the Dose button. Click on the Dose # Units button to dispense all remaining doses at once.
6. All dispensed doses will be highlighted in green.
7. Click on Print TO Labels. You also have the option to print bulk labels, window labels, and all labels.

Print Bulk Labels: If your facility prefers to use bulk labels, choose this option and check out this article to learn more about bulk labels. 

Print Window Label: Choose this option to only print the window label.

Print All Labels: Print all the labels. 

Note: If Dispense Unassigned Doses for Expected Patients is enabled and a combination medication is selected, Print Bulk Label becomes the main button in the Expected Doses section, replacing Print TO Labels.

Example for Medication Combinations: For a 6 mg total where the combination is 1 × 2 mg + 1 × 4 mg, the system generates two bulk labels: one for the 2 mg strength and one for the 4 mg strength. Each label shows how many films of that strength are in the bottle and the dosing instructions.

8. Once all doses have been dispensed, the system will show the “All available doses have already been dispensed” message. Additionally, it will create a Dispensed Doses section that includes dispensing details and the Dispensed From column.
9. You can complete the same actions from the MAT Order tab.

Handling Multiple Lot Numbers

If units exist for the same dose amount across multiple lot numbers, the system auto-assigns from the lot number prepared first (oldest prepared).

Expanding the Dispense From drop-down shows all lot numbers with available units of the same amount.

Selecting a different lot will unassign the previously selected unit and assign the new one.

No Available Unassigned Units

If a take-out has no matching unassigned units, an alert icon appears next to Facility Inventory. If you hover over the icon, you'll see the “There are no available units to assign. This dose will be dispensed from Facility Inventory” message.

Combo Medications

Changing the combo selection triggers a recheck of available units. The system updates the Dispense From value accordingly. 

Note: For combination medications, the system checks the default combination first. If a user selects a different combination, the system rechecks inventory for that specific combination.