Drug Distribution Management System (DDMS) for the Ministry of Health

Abstract

Drug distribution plays a major role the in health service of Sri Lanka. The health service spends over Rs.6 billion annually on drugs and other medical supplies required for patient care and preventive services. Misuse and mismanagement leads to destroying drugs worth millions of rupees every year.

Main aim of this project is to develop a system to control, monitor and manage drug distribution effectively. Thereby saving financial resources that could be otherwise invested to, further improve the quality of health in Sri Lanka. Objectives of the proposed drug distribution management system have been accomplished by utilizing modern software engineering approaches and latest technologies.

The current drug distribution and management system was studied by interviewing of personnel, as well as through questionnaires. After studying the present manual system, a computerized drug distribution system is proposed in this thesis with an appropriate prototype product, developed using JAVA technology. Apache struts framework with J2EE was used to implement the prototype, customizing the framework to be used to develop large-scale Web developments. System architecture, technology and framework in proposed system will be presented with appropriate explanation and justification.

User feedback on the implemented prototype at the ministry premises was taken using questionnaires to evaluate the product. Improvements identified and future developments are presented at the end of the thesis.