Most developing countries have their own medication lists with specific brand names.
The majority of doctors write both names - Brand/Generic to make it clear to the pharmacist.
It would be a great help in having a generic and brand names appear when writing prescriptions.
It would be quicker and avoid incorrect names.
Is it possible to upload a list (CSV or MySQL) to appear on the DRUG SEARCH box -(Attached).
Is there a easy way of doing this without being a programmer?
Thanks in advance
Kumara
Thanks MD
There is a particular structure given for the DRUGS table.
Will it be a problem to the functionality of the EMR if I insert one field into this?
default fields are
1 drug_id
2 name
3 ndc_number
4 on_order
etc
Would like to insert one field
1 drug_id
2 name
3 brand_name
4 ndc_number
5 on_order
Also I find that when I write the prescription there are two drug list that are shown
ONE is the above list that comes from the DRUG table
If you click to search - there is another short list that come from maybe a LIST
In addition there is another list for ALLERGIES
It a bit confusing. Would be good to have ONE medication list that accesses the DRUGS table.
Not sure how I would go about doing this?
Your advice would be appreciated
Unless you are ready to update the program(s) to consider brand_name, your changes will be ineffective. Since your post said no programming, you may want to tweak content of ‘name’ - e.g. for have several entries for same drug : Tylenol / acetaminophen, acetaminophen, Tylenol. If you are ready for generic, you would type ‘aceta’ and will see two options. If you type Tylenol, you will type and see two different options.
Agree it would be good to have a single list. You always have option of deleting drug entries in the list_options table.
Your advice.suggestions was really helpful and with my limited rusted knowledge of MySql started tinkering with the DRUGS Table
Somehow managed to combine the generic _ brand name and to write the new combined name to the column name in DRUGS table
Now when I search to enter e few letters I get a list of all generic-brand names from the PRESCRIPTION interface.
So one issue solved
Can I pick your brains a bit more? You said
‘Agree it would be good to have a single list. You always have option of deleting drug entries in the list_options table’
I just want a single list (what I have in the DRUGS - name) to be shown in MEDICATIONS and ALLERGIES
I misunderstood when you referred to multiple lists. Medications and prescriptions are two separate entries for a reason. Medications are the medical terms (e.g. paracetamol) while your practice may write prescription for the brand name (Triaminic in US). As stated earlier, if you don’t need medications list for patients don’t use it. If you need to suppress that item altogether, you can make it inactive in the lists.
Allergies to medications is just a subset of the issues. So it is separate issue list. Sorry, can’t think of a way to have prescriptions or medications to appear in allegies.
What I am thinking is that I have now got a list with generic, brand and possibly the ATC code. I have merged generic & brand so that I can quickly browse the available drugs when I write a script.
When I write a script I have the option of sending the medical name (generic-brans to the medication list automatically - so from the same list I can fill bot a script and medication names.
What I am thinking is to use the same list (or a part of the list) that includes the generic name when I indicate the allergies. At present the allergic drugs come from a simple list and not from the main drug table that we use for prescriptions.
What I can do is to make a generic name list from the main list to be copied to the allergies list.
Past ten years I have practiced in Australia where the EMR have all a standard list that includes generic-brand and that is updated monthly. It also has a clinical decision support system for prescriptions that catch drug-drug and drug disease interactions. However back in SL we do not have anything even similar to this or electronic records. So have to make our own EMR and what is included.
I have the same issues for ordering investigations. Cannot use the comprehensive interface given. Thinking of again including a list of lab test.
It is expected that allergens will be a super-set of medications - e.g. pt. may be allergic to certain diet. Further allergies are probably documented for a class of drugs (sulpha) rather than specific medications.
In any case, short of a program change you can’t reuse medications as choices for allergies. Notice that form for prescriptions is different than issues so the changes probably are not trivial/couple of lines.
In our installations we have taken different approach. After clinician enters data once, it automatically becomes a prompt for subsequent records. Further the display is ordered by frequency of use. It has worked great for us.