In response to heightened terror alerts and as a proactive measure to divert disaster, Ohio's Department of Public Health (ODH) has implemented a warehouse management based system to distribute medical supplies in the event of a catastrophe.

Ohio's public health team has implemented a warehouse management system to dispense Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) shipments carrying vaccines and antidotes in time of crisis. In conjunction with Integrated Warehousing Solutions (800-682-2910), the state of Ohio designed a self-contained, mobile warehouse management system (WMS) that manages distribution and automates record maintenance required for regulatory requirements.

"We needed a system that could track pharmaceuticals en masse once distributed," says Kent Ware, project lead for the SNS initiative. The WMS was not only developed as a contingency, the system is utilized on a daily basis by ODH officials to monitor supplies ordering—eliminating paper transactions. Health care providers statewide are now able to use the Internet to report medical transactions directly to the ODH.

Ware says that by the middle of this month, the system is expected to be fully operational with ODH workers fully trained.