FEFO (First-Expiry-First-Out)

FEFO — first-expiry-first-out — is the rule that when a drug is held in several batches, the batch with the nearest expiry date is dispensed first. It is distinct from FIFO (first-in-first-out), which goes by the order stock arrived. The two usually agree, and the times they disagree are exactly the times it matters: a batch received later can easily carry an earlier expiry, and a pharmacy dispensing by arrival order will quietly hold it until it is worthless.

Why it matters in a hospital

Expired stock is money a hospital has already spent and cannot recover, and in a pharmacy carrying several hundred lines it accumulates quietly — a few strips here, a box there, discovered at stock-take. FEFO is the single cheapest control against it, because it costs nothing to apply if the system knows each batch's expiry. It matters clinically too: the point of the rule is that near-expiry stock is used while it is still good, not that it is used up regardless. A pharmacist reaching into a shelf cannot hold the expiry dates of six batches in their head during a busy OPD hour, which is why this belongs in software rather than in a policy on the wall.

How Trisvio handles it

Trisvio holds pharmacy stock by batch with its expiry date, and dispensing allocates from the earliest-expiring batch automatically — the allocation is a pure, tested function rather than a prompt the pharmacist has to obey. Expiry and low-stock reporting work off the same batch records, so what is about to expire is visible before it does rather than at the next stock-take.