Several weeks ago I pointed out that an EMR or EHR vendor (or inside hospital HIS development team) overlooks some critical factors in making choices about drug data suppliers. No doubt the quality of the drug data is important, but that is just the beginning. These developers should be equally, if not even more, concerned about what I would call "softer" factors. such as:
1) Structure of the data (how easy is it to map to and identify?)
2) Availability and simplicity of the APIs offered by the vendor
3) How responsive is the drug information provider during the development period (this
will provide a major clue into how the long term relationship will work).
These might sound like simple things, but in the end, they are the most important things. Do your due diligence. Several years ago there were only a couple of drug data suppliers available. Now with the addition of the very well established drug information provider, Lexicomp, these development companies have a choice. Lexicomp has provided clinical decision support for three decades. It provides drug reference solutions to nearly 1500 hospitals in the United States, along with all divisions of the U.S. Military. The Vancouver study released last year, rated Lexicomp Online as the most preferred drug database.
If you are looking for drug information or medicine data, Lexicomp can help by providing a medication list that includes both generic, brand name, and over-the-counter drugs. By providing drug interaction screening including drug-drug, dose range checking, and duplicate therapy screening, Lexicomp can help EHR vendors meet a number of Meaningful Use requirements. The Lexi-Data product delivered by Lexicomp is also mapped to RXNORM and contains patient education which is another check box on the Meaningful Use requirements list.
1) Structure of the data (how easy is it to map to and identify?)
2) Availability and simplicity of the APIs offered by the vendor
3) How responsive is the drug information provider during the development period (this
will provide a major clue into how the long term relationship will work).
These might sound like simple things, but in the end, they are the most important things. Do your due diligence. Several years ago there were only a couple of drug data suppliers available. Now with the addition of the very well established drug information provider, Lexicomp, these development companies have a choice. Lexicomp has provided clinical decision support for three decades. It provides drug reference solutions to nearly 1500 hospitals in the United States, along with all divisions of the U.S. Military. The Vancouver study released last year, rated Lexicomp Online as the most preferred drug database.
If you are looking for drug information or medicine data, Lexicomp can help by providing a medication list that includes both generic, brand name, and over-the-counter drugs. By providing drug interaction screening including drug-drug, dose range checking, and duplicate therapy screening, Lexicomp can help EHR vendors meet a number of Meaningful Use requirements. The Lexi-Data product delivered by Lexicomp is also mapped to RXNORM and contains patient education which is another check box on the Meaningful Use requirements list.
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