Predicting, procuring, and maintaining an adequate stock of drugs is a critical component of an AIDS treatment program. The HIV-EMR can be used to support two methods of providing up-to-date analysis of drug stocks and needs.^23,24 First, it can aggregate drug regimen data for all patients to create custom reports of overall expected medication usage for a specified time period (and can also predict drug costs if unit price information is programmed into the system). The HIV-EMR can also provide electronic copies of stock cards to keep track of drug movement in and out of the warehouse, display current warehouse inventories, and generate warnings if inventories drop below pre-specified values. (Note that although a number of database systems have been developed to automate the process of calculating drug quantities from actual WHO stock cards, these systems generally require servers at each site.)²⁵ Using facsimiles of warehouse stock cards has simplified training and error checking. The HIV-EMR also has functions to record and track stock and stock movement in and between all pharmacies and warehouses in the ZL system.

Recording regimen and usage data in a single EMR system allows automatic cross checks of estimates from the two methods outlined here. Additionally, members of the international team of health workers, program administrators, and procurement managers have the same view of medication stock levels.