The pharmacy expiry playbook: stop writing off stock you could have used
Every hospital pharmacy lives with a quiet tension: order too little and you risk a stockout that endangers care; order too much and you write off the surplus when it expires. Most pharmacies solve this by over-ordering, because a stockout is visible and an expiry is not. The result is a slow, invisible leak of money onto the shelf.
It doesn't have to be a trade-off. With the right system in place, you can cut wastage and reduce stockouts at the same time. Here's the playbook.
#Track at the batch level, not the product level
"We have 200 boxes of X" is the wrong unit of truth. The right one is "we have 80 boxes expiring in March and 120 expiring in September." Without batch-level visibility — quantity, location and expiry date for every lot — you can't make the decisions that prevent waste. This is the foundation everything else rests on.
#Dispense first-expiry-first, automatically
Once batches carry expiry dates, dispensing should always pull from the lot that expires soonest. People won't do this reliably by eye, especially at a busy counter. The system should default to first-expiry-first and make doing the right thing the path of least resistance.
#Set reorder points on real consumption
A fixed monthly order ignores how demand actually moves. Reorder points calculated from real consumption — and adjusted by forecast where you have one — keep just enough stock on hand: enough to absorb normal variation, not so much that it ages out. The aim is a low, stable buffer, not a full cupboard.
#Catch expiries while you can still act
A near-expiry alert is only useful if it arrives with enough runway to do something. Flag lots 60 and 30 days out, not on the day they lapse. That window is what makes the next step possible.
#Redistribute before you write off
In a multi-site network, the single biggest source of waste is one branch binning a drug while another runs short of it. If you can see all sites' stock in one place, soon-to-expire lots can move to where they'll be used. Redistribution turns a write-off into a dispense.
A near-expiry alert with 60 days' notice is an opportunity. The same alert on the expiry date is just an obituary.
#Close the loop with reporting
Track wastage as a number you watch, not a surprise you discover at audit. Wastage value by month, by category and by branch tells you where the leak is and whether your fixes are working. What gets measured gets managed — and pharmacy wastage responds quickly to attention.
#The compounding win
These steps reinforce each other. Batch tracking enables first-expiry-first and near-expiry alerts; alerts enable redistribution; consumption-based reorder points shrink the buffer that ages out in the first place. Hospitals that put the full playbook in place routinely cut wastage by a quarter or more — not by ordering less and hoping, but by finally being able to see what they have and act on it in time.