Pediatric Dosage Calculations

As more and more healthcare professionals are adopting EMR technology to meet Meaningful Use requirements, we are receiving more and more interest from dentists about adding clincial decision support technology into their dental practice management system.  They are quickly realizing that Lexicomp is the preferred vendor of choice to work with, because we provide the very best dental specific drug database to integrate into their EMRs as well as personalized customer support during development.   Another important piece to consider in a dental EMR is an ePrescribing tool.  Lexicomp has a close partnership with DoseSpot to deliver this solution.  By selecting DoseSpot for ePrescribing, our clients are able to get to the market faster and reduce their headaches in developing the tool on their own.

Lexi-Data provides the drug information for  dose range checking,  pediatric dosing, drug calculators, medicine interactions, dosage precautions, clinical guidelines, drug interaction software, duplicate therapy, drug classifications, generic drug names, drug nomenclature and more.  These are critical paths for a dental EMR build. 

To learn more about Lexicomp's dental solutions, please visit our website at http://www.lexi.com/individuals/dentistry/

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.

• Allows for specific clinical decision support functions, including drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checking
• Has consumer-facing patient education materials
• Is compliant with the RxNorm 
• Include comprehensives reference information for the US including drug generic name, drug brand name, drug classifications, and eventually clinical dosage guidelines for calculating pediatric and adult doses

Having a sick child can be a challenging and stressful time for any parent.  A sick child also presents challenges for health care professionals as well as health information systems as it relates to prescribing medications.  For a number of medications, pediatric dosage calculations are based on weight.  Having a weight available in the community pharmacy setting is often challenging, however this is only the first step in being able to validate the correct dosage range.  The second piece necessary to accurately check the validity of a pediatric prescription is having the correct information in your pharmacy system. 

All too often, community pharmacy systems are not equipped with the necessary drug reference database to accurately evaluate a pediatric dose.  For over 15 years, pediatric practitioners have been using Lexicomp's Pediatric Dosage Handbook and more recently, our electronic versions to prescribe and validate pediatric dosing.  Now, this information has been transformed into a data set that can be integrated into pharmacy systems to allow your HIS to help you validate these critical doses.  For more information about this product, visit http://www.lexi.com/businesses/ehr-vendors/. 

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.

• Pediatric Dosage Calculations in both transactional information for the clinical decision support systems and reference materials designed for clinicians.
• Pediatric focused patient education materials

Several weeks ago I wrote a blog posting that included a list of drug information considerations for EMR vendors that were launching new products or looking to improve their current products.   As I wrote:

More and more EMR vendors and hospital EHR/HIS systems are attempting to improve their drug information to further enhance clinical decision support.  Below are just a few areas where having the right medicine data can make all the difference in the world.

• Drug Interaction Lists
• Adverse Drug Event Alerts
• Patient Education Pamphlets in 19 Languages
• RxNorm Mapping
• Pediatric Dosage Calculations
• Drug Allergy Interactions
• Clinical Guidelines
• Drug Interaction Software
• Drug - Drug Interactions
• Drug - Allergy interactions

There are very few drug information providers in the marketplace that have both quality data and a top notch,  customer-oriented support staff.   Cerner/Multum and  Lexicomp top the list.   Lexicomp offers  a unique blend of top quality information  coupled with the finest internal support anywhere.   Your IT guys will love you for going with Lexicomp -- a long-term partner in your road to success.

• Allows for specific clinical decision support functions, including drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checking
• Has consumer-facing patient education materials
• Is compliant with the RxNorm 
• Include comprehensive reference information for the US including drug generic name, drug brand name, drug classifications, and eventually clinical dosage guidelines for calculating pediatric and adult doses

• Drug Interaction Lists
• Adverse Drug Event Alerts
• Patient Education Pamphlets in 19 Languages
• RxNorm Mapping
• Pediatric Dosage Calculations
• Drug Allergy Interactions
• Clinical Guidelines
• Drug Interaction Software
• Drug - Drug Interactions
• Drug - Allergy interactions

• Drug Interaction Lists
• Adverse Drug Event Alerts
• Patient Education Pamphlets in 19 Languages
• RxNorm Mapping
• Pediatric Dosage Calculations
• Drug Allergy Interactions
• Clinical Guidelines

• Drug Interaction Lists
• Adverse Drug Event Alerts
• Patient Education Pamphlets in 19 Languages
• RxNorm Mapping
• Pediatric Dosage Calculations
• Drug Allergy Interactions
• Clinical Guidelines

The consumer groups and unions expressed support for several issues, including:

• Transitioning all "optional" criteria in Stage 1 to "required" criteria in Stage 2;
• Advancing key criteria that have an impact on quality and safety, such as electronic prescribing and medication reconciliation;
• Improving collection of advance directives (CMIO, 2/28); and
• Providing patients with online access to their health data, as well as secure messaging capabilities."