Why Dispatch Station
‹Draft — replace with a real story from our floor.› At an IPD pharmacy, the dispatch desk used to assign riders from the pack screen while runners waited at the rack — double entry, wrong bags, and no proof of ward handoff. Dispatch Station moves claim and start to the runner at
/dispatch, with badge and warehouse QRs that close the loop on return.
The problem
Hospital IPD fulfilment is not a courier label scan. Runners batch ward-specific bags, need Ref# and MRN on the sheet, and must prove handoff when they return. Assigning from the ERP while the runner stands at the rack creates lag, duplicate trips, and disputes about who claimed which STAT bag.
How Dispatch Station solves it
The public kiosk at /dispatch is built for the runner:
- Badge scan identifies the rider and their allowed warehouses.
- Rack claim shows packed picklists as tiles — Ref#, ward, MRN, cold-chain flag.
- Trip sheet prints at start; picklists move to dispatched in one action.
- Warehouse wall QR ends the trip and writes delivered with ward handoff text.
Staff print Rider QR and Warehouse Return QR once from Settings; runners don’t log in.
What makes it different
| Pack-screen dispatch (legacy) | Dispatch Station |
|---|---|
| Staff assigns from Fulfillment Queue | Runner self-claims at kiosk |
| Single-order mindset | Multi-bag trip with one sheet |
| Manual delivery update | Warehouse scan closes all bags on the trip |
| No public kiosk | /dispatch works without ERP login |
When it doesn’t apply
- 3PL / courier shipments still use carrier + tracking from the pack screen.
- Customer pickup does not use the dispatch kiosk.
- Runners without a tenant rider row and printed badge cannot use
/dispatch.
See Run the Dispatch kiosk for the operational steps and QR payloads & trip states for encoding rules.