Features of the iDART System

iDART was developed in conjunction with the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre as a result of a doctor’s request for a solution to help manage and monitor ARV drug stock and patient therapy dispensing. The challenges identified by the doctor which Cell-Life has addressed included:

• A need to monitor ARV stock levels at any given time

• A need to be alerted whenever a specific drug level was low

• A need to be notified when any drugs were about to expire

• A need to be notified when patients defaulted on their treatment collection

• A need to have an electronic patient history

• A need to help manage large numbers of patient numbers on ART simply and effectively

• A need to monitor a patients' packaging, dispensing and monitoring of drugs

• A need to reduce costs associated with dispensing chronic medication

• A need to save time in the process of report creation

Key Benefits 

• Accurate tracking of patient treatment
  

• Comprehensive patient history pertaining to treatment

• Accurate ARV stock control management
  

• Time saving of pharmacy dispensing through faster processing 

• Reduces and identifies loss of ARVs 

• Operates through clearly identifiable, multi-lingual bar-coded labels which are created for each and every drug and patient package

Technology

iDART is developed using open-source technologies and has been developed to run on any windows or linux based platform, allowing users to access and operate the system in a familiar and easy to use way. The choice for using open-source software is that there are no proprietary licensing costs associated with the use of the software. The use of open-source also allows for people to take the software for free and use it at their sites should they have the necessary skills to manage its operation. Each iDART installation operates with a bar-code label printer connected to the PC which allows for each and every drug which is packaged to be clearly labelled. The labels which are printed upon dispensing can also be created in a range of languages depending on the ART site. The labels make for easy drug information and label packaging and eradicate many of the errors that occur through hand-written dosage instructions.The Reporting Tool:

One of the more important functions of iDART is in the various reports that the software makes available. The reports range from basic stock control management and monitoring reports to specific patient defaulter lists which allow for the easy management and follow-up of patients. iDART also keeps the entire patient history of a patient in its database and allows for accurate tracking of patients receiving treatment from ART sites. It is important to note that Cell-Life believe strongly in addressing the needs of each specific site and the technology used is flexible enough to include numerous other reports. Cell-Life believe that the technology implemented needs to assist the existing processes in place at sites and therefore looks to adapt the technology to best suit these needs.

Down Referral or Decanting to remote clinics

One of the great features of iDART is that it also allows for the decanting of packages to remote clinics and dispensaries that do not hold stock of ARVs. iDART allows a central ART site or pharmacy to prepare packages for a patients belonging to remote clinics and will trace the entire process until the patient collects their drugs. Feedback is then provided via the network to the central pharmacy to signal that the package was collected and the pharmacist is then allowed to package drugs for the patient in the next month. The diagram below illustrates the system configuration used for down referral / decanting.