Background Levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LICG) is for the treatment of patients with late Parkinson’s disease. The treatment with LICG represents considerable costs. LICG is distributed after a defrosting procedure resulting in unusual short expiration of 8 to 10 weeks. Therefore, it is a challenge to plan and hold stock, and dispense it to the patients without the risk of exceeding the expiration. The biggest problem is the unknown patients’ stock and unexpected changes in treatment. Earlier, several pharmacists kept all these records in a paper calendar which meant excessive paperwork and a high risk of dispensing LICG with too short an expiration.

Purpose To assess how the semi-automatic planning system has improved control of patients’ stock, how it has helped to predict patients’ visits and to plan supply of LICG at the pharmacy.

Material and methods For using LICG, patients need a number of medical devices. Marketing authorisation holders (MAH) have developed an automatic system for monitoring the needs and supply of those devices (Abbvie Medical Devices and Accessories Records (AMDAR)). We suggested creating a similar system for LICG and the pharmacy. Key requirements were pharmacy stock management, patients’ stock management, control of expiration dates and predicting numbers of boxes needed for dispensation in the following week.

Results A portal for the pharmacy has been developed. Pharmacists and physicians have gained access to new patients’ records. The portal recorded: requests for LICG by physicians, date of dispensation desired by patients and patients’ stock and expirations. The portal calculated the expected patient visit and calculated the pharmacy stock for the respective and following week.

The current version enables sending email alerts to pharmacists when the number of cartridges changes (e.g. due to damage or changes in dosing) or when the date of predicted patient’s visit does not correspond to the date desired by the patient. Alerts have saved many phone calls and no such information can be lost.

Conclusion The pharmacy portal has simplified the communication between physicians and pharmacists, controls the risks of exceeded expirations and helps us predict the supply of LICG more efficiently. We believe our system might be an inspiration for similar costly or problematic medicinal products.

References and/or Acknowledgements The authors thank the physicians and nurses of the Neurological Department for their valuable comments.

No conflict of interest