Patient Education Leaflets

Over the last few years, Lexicomp has become the fastest growing provider of drug information to EMR/EHR vendors.  It is not only due to the excellent and personalized customer service that each customer receives, but also because Lexicomp strives to stay ahead on cutting edge technology and industry updates.   Over the last twelve months, Lexi-Data customers have taken advantage of several more enhancements to the product that:

• Reduce development time
• Add unique functionality
• Answer common EMR vendor concerns

Lexi-Data clients can alleviate alert fatigue

Alert fatigue is now one of the primary concerns of clinicians concerning EMR adoption, so Lexi-Data has created a way to easily filter alerts such as Black Box Warnings.  This results in more relevant, actionable, and valuable alerts.  This is exactly what EMR users are looking for.

Expanded web services drastically cuts development time

Lexicomp now provides web service delivery for those clients who just  want instant access over the Internet.  This cuts development and maintenance costs drastically, and allows clients to get to the market faster with additional functionality.

Targeted patient education materials for improved care

Lexi-Data now offers both adult and pediatric patient education leaflets in 19 languages.  These patient education leaflets are used daily by thousands of hospitals in the United States and can now be integrated into EMRs. 

If you are interested in learning more about our integration capabilities, we'd love to talk with you.  Please contact us at 1-877-819-6883.

Patients are becoming more involved in their own healthcare, and are increasingly making use of patient portals and consumer-facing websites to do research, follow their progress, and even answer questions they might have previously posed to their physician. At the very least, they are using these sites to be more informed during visits to their care providers so they can get more value from those encounters.

All of this creates an opportunity for innovative developers to provide accurate, reliable, easy-to-understand information to patients via the web. One source for medication and clinical information that can be easily integrated into such sites is Lexicomp.

Lexicomp is a leading provider of drug reference, clinical reference, and patient education leaflets and materials to clinicians. Over a thousand hospitals use Lexicomp's information every day during patient encounters. The information available includes medication lists, drug monographs, drug interaction information (including interactions with common food and natural products), drug allergy information, patient education documents, dose adminstration, warnings, and more.

And Lexicomp's information can be easily integrated into your site in a variety of ways. You can choose to have an installed local database, or to use web services to pull information from Lexicomp's servers as needed. Contact Lexicomp today to find out how to populate your patient portal or consumer website with the information your users are looking for.

• New web services calls that allow for implementation of Meaningful Use Stage 1 requirements without an installed database
• New Black Box Warnings information that helps alleviate alert fatigue
• Expanded patient education leaflets in multiple languages

Pediatric dosing continues to be a major concern among clinicians in almost all practice settings. In fact, those who do not regularly treat children often have the most questions about proper dosing and treatment. One area where EMR, EHR, and HIS systems can meaningfully differentiate themselves is in providing this information.

Physicians, pharmacists and nurses know that children are not simply "little adults". Besides different dosage precautions, children may require different administration or routes -- and for some cases may receive completely different medications. Different patient education leaflets are also needed when treating children.

For these reasons, it's important to partner with a drug information vendor that is well regarded in pediatrics. Lexicomp is the drug reference vendor of choice among U.S. pediatric hospitals, and has specialized in this area for decades. Most clinicians will see children as patients at some point in their work, and they know that this vulnerable population requires special care. Using Lexicomp as a drug vendor can help put their concerns to rest and add value to their EMR, EHR, or HIS system.

Great drug reference databases do not grow on trees.  If you are in the midst of developing or redesigning an EMR or EHR, then you already know this.  There are lots of key questions to keep in mind throughout the decision process:

1. How much will they help in setting up the API's? 
2. Do they have a specific pediatric dose range checking product?  
3. Do they have patient education leaflets?
4. Are they available in foreign languages? 

Take a look at the marketplace and see who can meet all your needs--check out Lexicomp early in the searching process and you will be pleasantly surprised.

What do these words have in common?  "Pediatric dosing information; Medicine lists; Medicine brand names;  Drug-drug interaction;  Drug-allergy interactions; Drug interaction database; ePrescribing;  Patient education."  

There are many EMR products under development, many targeting smaller hospitals and ambulatory facilities.  There are also a number of other EMR and Practice Management products that are going through major product re-design.  Many of these development groups need to confront the decision about what drug information supplier to use.  As the title of this posting says "EMR developers are now searching for drug and disease information providers that are easy to work with" (Note: most are not).   This might not sound like a tall order, but as it turns out, it is much more difficult than they think.   It's about the data as much as it about the quality of the relationship as well as the flexibility and helpfulness of the vendor. 

How much will they help in setting up the API's?  Do they have a specific pediatric dose range checking product?  Do they have patient education leaflets? Are they available in foreign languages? 

                         One drug data provider stands out above else....Lexicomp.  If your serious, check them out.

Matt Bennardo had a great blog post last week where he wrote about the positive benefits of Meaningful Use on the development of EHRs and their impact on patient safety.  He cites a study by Practice Fusion,  where it has been shown that EHR's are having a real impact on the decrease in infant mortality.  This is great news!

As Matt wrote, "Of course, to get these kinds of results, the information in the EHR needs to be accurate, timely, complete, actionable, and specific to the patient. With respect to pediatric and neonatal patients, that last point is especially important. An EHR that is only set up to perform dose range checking and interaction checking on adults won't be nearly as helpful when it comes to children."

All pediatric dosage calculators are not created equally.   As Matt goes on to say, "But luckily there are drug information vendors like Lexicomp that understand there is a vast world of difference between adults and children -- and often between older children and neonates. Lexicomp's drug information is trusted by dozens of EHR vendors to guide clinicians in prescribing, fulfilling, and administering drugs to patients of all types -- including children.

Lexicomp provides both "machine readable" transactional information (geared towards specific populations) for use in clinical decision support, as well as "human readable" reference materials for clinicians and patients. Even Lexicomp's patient education leaflets are written with either adult or pediatric patients in mind.

If you are developing an EMR or looking to improve an EHR or HIS system, I would suggest reaching out to Lexicomp for some suggestions.

My colleague,  Matt Bennardo,  wrote a wonderful blog posting about the potential upcoming changes in stage two Meaningful Use guidelines as it relates to Patient Education.  This could be a very big deal.

My colleague,  Matt Bennardo,  wrote a wonderful blog posting about the potential upcoming changes in stage two Meaningful Use guidelines as it relates to Patient Education.  This could be a very big deal.

 Patient education will become more and more important over time,  because there is a strong belief that better patient outcomes will result if patients know  more about their condition, treatment program,  and drug regimen.   On the drug side,  this could mean  dose administration regimen,  dosage precautions, drug interactions,  drug-allergy interactions, adverse drug events and more.

What EMR vendors (and institutions)  need to start thinking about today,  are the implications that requirements to supply Patient Education Leaflets,  likely will not just mean English. 

In his posting,   Matt,  states:  "The workgroups are additionally talking about  better and more relevant patient education. One point of discussion has  been providing the materials in "common primary languages" for every  metropolitan statistical area. This would require providers to have  patient education available in any language that is spoken by 5% of the  population they serve, or at least 1000 people in the same population --  whichever is lower. This is a big deal, and not every information  vendor is in a position to deliver on this!

He goes on to say:

Lexicomp can help bridge the gap
Luckily, some vendors are. Lexicomp has long had patient education materials in many languages. At last count, they could provide up to 19 different languages commonly spoken in the United States and Canada. This is just one example of how a forward-thinking drug information vendor was able to anticipate and meet advanced requirements before they were even formulated. So when evaluating vendor partnerships for your EMR or HIS system, it's not enough to find one who can check off boxes. Instead, you need to find a vendor with the same commitment to improving patient care that ONC and CMS are seeking."

Please take note now,  early in the integration of your drug module into your EMR system.