wawa can require a second pharmacist to approve every medication dispense. When this is turned on, a dispense is only complete once the named approver has reviewed and approved it. This gives your clinic a clear record of who checked and who approved each dispense.
New to dispensing? Start with How do I dispense medications through wawa?
Turning on dispense approval
Go to Settings > Pharmacy.
Switch on Require approver.
Click Save.
The setting applies to every dispense in your account from then on. You need access to clinic settings to change it.
Who can check and approve a dispense?
Every dispense records two people: who checked it and who approved it. Both must:
have the Pharmacy role on their user account, and
be assigned to the clinic the medication is being dispensed from.
You can never pick yourself as the approver. When Require approver is on, the approver must also be a different person from the one selected in Checked by. The Approver list updates automatically so only eligible pharmacists appear.
Tip: if the person you need is missing from either list, check that they have the Pharmacy role and are assigned to the right clinic.
Dispensing when approval is required
Click + Dispense, select the patient and add the medication(s) as usual.
Choose who the dispense was Checked by, then choose the Approver.
Click Dispense. If you're not ready to finish, click Save as draft instead and complete it later with Edit Draft.
Once dispensed, the record shows an Awaiting approval badge, and the approver is sent a task.
Note: stock is deducted from your inventory as soon as the medication is dispensed, not when it is approved. Any linked prescription is also marked as dispensed at that point.
Approving a dispense
When you're chosen as the approver, a task called Approve dispense for [patient name] appears in your Tasks, due the same day. You can find all of them by filtering tasks by the Dispenses - to approve type.
Open the task, or find the dispense in the Pharmacy dispensing list, to view the dispense record.
Review the patient, medications, batch numbers and quantities.
Click Approve in the footer.
The badge changes to Approved, the date and time are recorded under Approved at, and your task is marked as done automatically. Only the named approver sees the Approve button. If a dispense is waiting on someone who is unavailable, they will need to approve it when they're back.
What if approval is turned off?
You still select who the dispense was checked by and who approved it, but the dispense is marked Approved straight away. No task is created, and the checker and approver can be the same person.
Status badges at a glance
Badge | Meaning |
Draft | Saved but not yet dispensed. No stock has been deducted. |
Awaiting approval | Dispensed, waiting for the approver. |
Approved | Dispensed and approved. |