Can medication databases improve the efficiency of hospitals and healthcare bodies?

By Daniela Chueke
08:29 AM

This is the belief of experts at Vademecum Data Solutions, the database for pharmacological information and decision-making support produced by Vademecum Internacional (UBM Medica), a leading global medication information group.

Vademecum provides this information in electronic, structured format to over 3500 hospital centers across 4 continents. The integration of databases in hospitals and healthcare bodies has numerous benefits for clinics and computer technicians who manage information every day, which can be summed up in the following points:  

Time savings when establishing the parameters for tables and medication information. This will allow clinics to focus more time on treatment and not time-consuming upload/updating processes for data deriving from, for example, migrations or new electronic prescription projects.

Furthermore, computer technicians who use this information system also benefit from having a completely standardized and structured medication database and therapeutic decision-making support program that can be adapted to their respective data models (this is the experience of Vademecum Data Solutions in Spain). This is because technicians know that the codification of a database is crucial in helping the computer system to provide real, operational added value, i.e. to ensure that the Electronic Health Record (EHR) and the active medication sheet of each patient are connected – so that the physio-pathological parameters contained in each patients’ electronic health record are taken into account.

In addition, successful integration of a medication database can also provide continuously updated information as information on medications is constantly changing and this would be extremely valuable to clinics. For example the Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios (Spanish Agency of Medications and Health Products, AEMPS) sends health professionals a monthly report in which 5 or 6 new medications are published as well as almost 500 monthly changes to authorized medications, such as new instructions and, finally, safety information: interactions, changes in dosage and problems with medication supply, all of it sensitive information that must be continuously updated. Also in this field, both doctors and pharmacists need information about new medications to include them in their Pharmaco-Therapeutic System/Registry/Guide (PTG) or for specific needs. Vademecum Data Solutions provides a database that isn’t just up to date but is also complete, containing all the authorized medications in Spain, and also Mexico and Chile.

Finally, the administration functions of the Pharmaco-Therapeutic Guide (PTG) available from Vademecum Data Solutions makes it possible to publish the Pharmaco-Therapeutic Guide, and rapidly make it available to the entire clinical community, continuously updated in different formats, so that we can forget about paper and its associated costs. The Electronic Pharmaco-Therapeutic Guide is more versatile and rapidly updateable than a paper guide.    

For all these reasons, Vademecum Data Solutions is the preferred database for a multitude of hospitals and other healthcare bodies in Spain as it allows administrative and clinical medication procedures to be standardized, facilitating safe, documented prescriptions.

 

This story originally appeared at E-Health Reporter Latin America.

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