Unanswered questions around meaningful use

Electronic Prescribing

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by Ryan Smith
It is estimated that approximately 7,000 deaths occur each year in the United States due to medication errors. Studies conclude that e-prescribing is the solution to improved patient safety and reducing sky-rocketing medication costs. 
Lexicomp understands that for most practices, moving from paper to an electronic medical record or electronic health records can a challenge. Lexicomp has the drug information foundation which was built for healthcare IT professionals. Lexicomp provides the drug reference and data content you need to get your system certified sooner. When you choose our Lexi-Data product, you'll get superior customer service, easy implementation, and timely updates. 

Electronic Prescribing

Monday, December 12, 2011 by Ryan Smith

ePrescribing

ePrescribing is offered as a way to prevent medication errors that arise due to difficulties in reading or understanding handwritten prescriptions. ePrescribing could also reduce adverse drug events (ADEs) by making information such as drug interactions and contraindications available to prescribers at the time they are preparing a prescription.

Lexi-Data is the foundation of Lexicomp's clinical decision support architecture is quickly becoming the standard for when companies need an up-to-date comprehensive drug database.  This product provides patient specific alerts and referential content to support sound treatment decisions in areas such as drug interaction checking (drug-drug and drug-food), drug allergy checking, therapeutic duplication checking, RxNorm Mappings, supports Surescripts Certification,  Drug Classifications, dose range checking (adult and pediatric), Patient Education, and more. 

Are you looking for a complete collection of patient focused drug information for your web site, patient portal, or kiosk?

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 by Ryan Smith
Drug-Drug Interaction Data

Lexicomp provides companies with with the ncessary tools to integrate drug-drug interaction data, drug-food interaction checking information, drug–allergy checking information, therapeutic duplication checking information, drug images, and patient education leaflets which are available in 19 different languages. 

If you are interested in increasing your web site traffic with the industry trusted brand of Lexicomp, please contact us today to learn more. We can help you increase the patients awareness related to the education of drug information questions or concerns that patients commonly have. 

If you are being asked to develop a site (I’m speaking to the developers out there), getting up and running is typically a top priority. Lexicomp understand that speed of implementation is critical. We have a number of delivery methods of content available including a downloadable version from a FTP site which would be stored within your database environment or we also offer Web Services which is the ability to make real-time calls over the web. Developers also have access to our team of engineers who are dedicated to making your integration build seamless.  

Drug Information for Meaningful Use

Friday, October 21, 2011 by Ryan Smith


Clinical Decision Support
Among the Eligible Professionals who are going for federal incentive payments for Meaningful Use, podiatrists rank high among early adopters. iWatch news recently published an article (http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/10/12/6941/podiatrists-have-their-foot-door), describing this observation.

Does your EHR meet the certification requirements established by ONC? Lexicomp can help by providing your system key clinical decision support data required for certification.  As an integrated component of your EHR, our transactional drug data and reference information support the following Stage 1 meaningful use and certification criteria from ONC's Final Rule.

Lexi-Data is the foundation of Lexicomp's clinical decision support architecture. This product provides clinical decision alerts and referential content to support sound treatment decisions in areas such as drug interaction checking (drug-drug and drug-food), drug allergy checking, therapeutic duplication checking, RxNorm Mappings, Drug Classifications, dose range checking (adult and pediatric) and more.

What are you doing about Electronic prescribing (eRx)?

Sunday, September 25, 2011 by Ryan Smith
ePrescribing

It is estimated that each year some 530,000 adverse drug events take place among Medicare beneficiaries alone because of drugs negatively interacting with other drugs the patient is already taking, or insufficient information about the patient’s medical history.  The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported last year that more than 1.5 million Americans are injured annually by drug errors in hospitals, nursing homes and doctor’s offices.  These negative drug events may require costly interventions in order to stabilize the patient, including hospitalization.  

Electronic prescribing (eRx) has been recognized as an important step in moving health care from a paper-based legacy to a new electronic platform. The use of ePrescribing has been incentivized by the federal government, specifically via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). 

Lexi-Data is the foundation of Lexi-Comp's clinical decision support architecture. This product provides patient specific alerts and referential content to support sound treatment decisions in areas such as drug interaction checking (drug-drug and drug-food), drug allergy checking, therapeutic duplication checking, RxNorm Mappings, Drug Classifications, dose range checking (adult and pediatric) and more. 

We are committed to ensuring patient safety. 

Drug Information for Websites

Thursday, August 25, 2011 by Ryan Smith
For over 30 years, Lexicomp has been a trusted provider of drug information.  Lexicomp can provide consumer websites or patient portals with drug reference content specifically designed for the consumer audience. When integrated into your websites or patient portals, our drug information will provide patients the knowledge they need to better understand their medications.

We provide patient education information that allows patients to generate their own handouts for medications (available in 19 languages) and drug images that will enable patients to easily identify their medications based on appearance. We also provide a drug interactions database that enables patients to view information on drug-allergy, drug-drug and drug-food interactions. 

Lexicomp has a Business Development Unit deadicated to actively pursuing relationships with companies that provide complementary products and services. These relationships allow for system integration and licensing of our content and applications.  We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate how our content can enhance your system and help improve patient safety.  

Interested in speeding up clinical decision making for physicians, nurses, and pharmacists without disrupting their workflow?

Thursday, August 11, 2011 by Ryan Smith
What agony when a clinician’s workflow is interrupted because they need to confirm clinical information such as a correct dose, REMS Information (Information about FDA approved Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies is included in Medication Guide, REMS Components and Prescribing and Access Restriction fields),  or to find and print patient education materials. 

Our easy-to-implement Integration solutions integrate seamlessly within any hospital’s EMR, CPOE, pharmacy system, or Web portal, connecting clinicians directly Lexicomp’s trusted drug information. 
Lexicomp has integration established with many of the well know health care information system providers such as Cerner, Epic, Eclipsys, Meditech, Siemens and GE which provides one-click access to Lexicomp drug reference content such as drug monographs, patient education material which is available in 18 languages, pediatric dosing, and more. 
We have a number of options available for the integration of Lexicomp Online content which include web based URLs (APIs), Web Services, or XML Datasets. 

Web API Solution
  • Our Web API solution empowers integration of all Lexicomp content. Consistent API programming calls save time and allow clinicians to launch from their internal applications into our clinical databases, utilizing whatever delivery platform they choose.
Web Services
  • Our Web Services platform is written for compatibility with Microsoft® .NET™ and Java™ programs. XML data can be obtained via standardized calls and is then processed and returned in real-time. Your application will retrieve and parse the content into your display, making complete customization a reality.
XML Datasets
  • If live Internet calls are not preferred, XML datasets are available for download from an FTP site and incorporated directly into the database.

Adverse Drug Events (ADE)

Friday, July 22, 2011 by Ryan Smith
Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) affect every health organization. Do you have an up-to-date trusted drug database for means of retrieving drug information?  Learn about prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines with Lexi-Data. Lexi-Data Basic (widely known as the Multum Lexicon product) includes drug names, drug product information, disease names, coding systems, and much more.  Multum is a registered trademark of Cerner Corp. 

Need Medication Database for Research Purposes

Thursday, July 21, 2011 by Ryan Smith
There are many universities and institutions that now require access to an up-to-date standardized drug database which would be used for analytics, claims review / auditing, or research purposes.  Many of these universities and/or institutions now have a Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy department or Institute on Aging department that are focused on various aspects of research.  

One product that has long served the needs of these researchers and univerisities is Multum's Lexicon. Another is Lexi-Data Basic.
 
Lexi-Data Basic provides drug information that includes drug names (brand name, generic name, and common abbreviations), therapeutic categories, drug classifications, indications, and standard coding such as NDC, J-Cods, and ICD-9.  The Lexi-Data Basic product is powered by the widely known and trusted Multum Lexicon product which has been utilized by hundreds of universities and institutions in the past.  Multum is a registered trademark of Cerner Corp. 

For more information on Lexi-Data Basic, click the links to fill out the form on this page.

Clinical Interoperability

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 by Ryan Smith
Did you know that Lexicomp provides clinical decision support data needed for patient specific alerts (i.e. drug interactions, allergy, duplicate therapy and dose range checking) and to support sound treatment decisions in EMR products and e prescribing applications? 

Lexicomp actively pursues relationships with companies that offer complementary products and services to allow for system integration. Through our HIS vendors such as Epic, Cerner, GE, Meditech, and others, clinicians can link directly to Lexicomp’s superior drug information, enabling them to make even faster, safer decisions while improving patient outcomes at the point-of-care. 

Anesthesiology & Critical Care Drug Information

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 by Ryan Smith
The market for anesthesia information systems is predicted to increase 50% by 2012 and be valued at $4 billion by 2017.  According to a new report by iData Research (www.idataresearch.net), the leading global authority in medical device market research, the U.S. anesthesia, respiratory and sleep-management device market will reach approximately $4 billion by 2017, with strong growth being driven by anesthesia information management system (AIMS) sales. This report is accompanied by two companion reports, "Electronic Medical Records" and "Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS)", which forecast rapid adoption of medical information technology due to approaching deadlines set out by the U.S. government's Healthcare Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

Lexicomp maintains an Anesthesiology & Critical Care database that presents information on over 2000 medications used in the care of surgical or critically ill patients. This is a must-have drug reference for anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, intensivists, and other critical care practitioners. 

When utilizing our Web API Solution, Web Services, or XML datasets, this type of information can be accessed from within the workflow. This integration delivers detailed drug and clinical reference information , including anesthesia and critical care concerns, use, dosage, monitoring parameters, and anesthetic drug interactions, where applicable  to physicians, pharmacists and nurses, supporting improved decisions at the point-of-care. 

Need a database for Analytics?

Thursday, May 12, 2011 by Ryan Smith
There are a high number of companies that are attempting to analyze the usage of a drug products by specific diagnosis, line of therapy, stage of disease, and much more by electronically collecting information through software programs and then performing analytics. These types of companies might be interested in looking at drug and drug combination administered, line of therapy, dose administered, change of therapy reason, and I’m sure that there are many other use cases.
  
Many of these companies are turning to Lexicomp for core drug nomenclature because Lexicomp's database is up-to-date,  highly normalized, flexible classification schemes, and the granular data they need to perform this type of analysis.
 
Lexi-Data Basic provides drug information that includes drug names (brand name, generic name, route, strength, form, National Drug Code (NDC), etc.), therapeutic categories, drug classifications, pricing, standard or customized disease names and associated ICD-9 codes, and other coding systems such as NDC and J-Codes.  This database is compatible with Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, and Access. 

Clinical Decision Support

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 by Ryan Smith
Hospitals and health systems face the increasingly frightening task of improving the quality of patient care while lowering costs but meeting new meaningful use standards. 

Clinical Decision Support tools add tremendous value to EHRs by offering physicians, nurses, pharmacists with information that enhances patient safety, reduces the risk of medication errors, and increases efficiency. 

Lexicomp’s Clinical Decision Support tools support healthcare technology by bringing the best clinical information to the forefront based on the situation at hand.  Healthcare professionals are able to quickly make fully informed decisions on drug prescribing, dispensing, adjudication and analysis.

Standard Ambulatory EHR Criteria

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 by Ryan Smith
Lexi-Comp's transactional drug data and reference information supports various components of Stage 1 meaningful use and certification criteria from ONC's Final Rule, specifically the implementaiton of electronic clinical decision support rules (drug-to-drug and drug allergy contraindication checking) based on the data elements included in: problem list, medication list, demographics and laboratory test results. 

Lexi-Data, Lexicomp's clinical decision support database, will help you meet several aspects of clinical decision support required for certification. Here's how:

Drug Interaction Data - we'll provide your system data that enables clinicians to screen for drug interactions, including drug-allergy, drug-drug and drug-food

RxNorm Mapping - we promote interoperability through mapping to industry standard RxNorm 

Drug Reference Data - integrate drug reference information, such as drug images and black box warnings, into your system

Patient Education Data - we provide patient education information that allows users to generate patient-specific handouts for medications (available in 19 languages), and conditions and procedures (available in English and Spanish)

Dose Range Checking - we provide data that enables clinicians to receive dosing alerts for medications, including limits for pediatric patients

Lexi-Data is designed for easy implementation. Our intuitive database design will help you seamlessly integrate complex drug databases into your system. 

Lots of Meaningful Use buzz at HIMSS 2011

Thursday, February 17, 2011 by Ryan Smith
HIMSS 2011 in Orlando, the largest health IT event of the year,  is only four days away! Everyone likes to know that they have choices – especially when faced with decisions that may end up costing money, time or sleepless nights. So if you haven’t yet heard about Lexi-Data, I invite you to take a little time at HIMSS11 to learn about the transactional drug information database that is fast becoming the preferred choice for EMRs. 

Lexicomp has been delivering top rated drug and clinical reference information direct to clinicians for over 30 years. In 2009, we entered the transactional drug data market with Lexi-Data – and since then we’ve helped many EMRs and hospitals become certified on required Meaningful Use criteria like drug-drug interaction checking, drug-allergy interaction checking, patient education, interoperability with RxNorm, and more.

Visit us at HIMSS11 at booth #6653! 

HIMSS 2011

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 by Ryan Smith
HIMSS 2011 is getting close. In my review of the HIMSS website, there are over 300 sessions of the industry’s hottest topics covering ARRA and Meaningful Use, Health Reform, interoperability and much more. 

While the exhibit hall is enormous, it is an excellent place for vendors to talk to each other.  It is the most vendor-friendly conference you could attend, and there are tremendous amounts of business-to-business discussions so stop by and see us at Booth # 6653. 
 
In today's fast-paced healthcare industry, electronic health record (EHR) and other healthcare information system vendors need smart, current drug data that will enable their systems to drive patient safety and improve healthcare. Lexicomp has been trusted for over 30 years as the superior drug information resource for clinical decision support data and other drug data solutions. 
 

Alert Fatigue in EHR and EMR Systems

Tuesday, December 28, 2010 by Ryan Smith
One of the most common comments that I hear from users of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems is associated with “alert fatigue” from unwelcome drug interaction notifications. Many users tell me that they are flooded with unavoidable but unnecessary alerts that interrupt their workflow, decrease productivity, and make the important alerts harder to see. Clinicians find themselves clicking through the alerts as quickly as possible which defeats the purpose of clinical decision support. 
 
In today's fast-paced healthcare industry, electronic health record (EHR) and other healthcare information system vendors need smart, current drug data that will enable their systems to drive patient safety and improve healthcare -- without generating a flood of annoying alerts that will only be ignored. 
 
Lexi-Data is the foundation of Lexi-Comp's clinical decision support architecture. This product provides patient specific alerts and referential content to support sound treatment decisions in areas such as drug interaction checking (drug-drug and drug-food), drug allergy checking, therapeutic duplication checking, dose range checking (adult and pediatric) and more. 
 

Lexi-Comp is Supporting Medication Vocabulary Interoperability

Thursday, December 2, 2010 by Ryan Smith
We have been hearing a lot about RxNorm and the fact that it is the recommended national standard for medication vocabulary for clinical drugs and drug delivery devices produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). 
 
What is the purpose of RxNorm? Because every drug information system that is commercially available today follows somewhat different naming conventions, a standardized nomenclature is needed for the smooth exchange of information, not only between organizations, but even within the same organization. For example, a hospital may use one system for ordering and another for inventory management. Still another system might be used to record dose adjustments or to check drug interactions. Several cooperating hospitals might have different systems, and find their data incomparable.

A standardized nomenclature that relates itself to terms from other sources can serve as a means for determining when names from different source vocabularies are synonymous (at an appropriate level of abstraction). The goal of RxNorm is to allow various systems using different drug nomenclatures to share data efficiently at the appropriate level of abstraction. 
 
For full guidance about RxNorm a, click on the link below
 
 
To support our customers who are developing healthcare IT applications that require medication vocabulary interoperability — such as those in EMR systems for e-prescribing, Lexi-Comp offers the RxNorm mappings within our Lexi-Data product. Interoperability is vital for healthcare IT systems using different drug databases to successfully communicate drug information across different platforms.
 
Lexi-Data is the foundation of Lexi-Comp's clinical decision support architecture. This product provides patient specific alerts and referential content to support sound treatment decisions in areas such as drug interaction checking (drug-drug and drug-food), drug allergy checking, therapeutic duplication checking, dose range checking (adult and pediatric) and more. 
 

The Power of Integration

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 by Ryan Smith
As a standalone product, Lexi-Comp has consistently been rated higher than the competition on the basis of ease-of-use and ability to find answers quickly for drug reference information. With its intuitive interface and layout, Lexi-Comp helps clinicians find direct answers to tough clinical questions faster than other commonly used drug information resources.  
 
Today, having that information integrated into the workflow is a critical factor to increase efficiency and productivity while enhancing patient safety at the point-of-care.
 
Lexi-Comp offers the ability to integrate our reference content from Lexi-Comp, our trusted resource used at thousands of hospitals and healthcare systems. This integration option provides the ability to link from within workflow applications to more detailed Lexi-Comp reference information, aiding in pharmacotherapy decision making.
 
Lexi-Comp has integration established with many of the well know health care information system providers such as Cerner, Epic, Eclipsys, Meditech, Siemens and GE through the InfoButton Standard which ultimately provides one-click access to Lexi-Comp reference content such as drug monographs, patient education material which is available in 18 languages, drug interactions and more. Vendors or hospitals also have the option to utilize our Web Services which provides users with access to the same reference content however instead of providing the Lexi-Comp ‘look and feel’, our Web Services provides XML data that is obtained via standardized calls. This XML is then parsed and then displayed within the vendor’s own ‘look and feel’ providing complete customization. 
 

Will we see consolidation in the EMR space?

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I think that we are all aware of the various discussion topics in the EMR and EHR space related to Meaningful Use requirements, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) incentive requirements, and SureScripts Certification. The latest news was that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology named the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Drummond Group Inc., and InfoGard Laboratory, Inc. as the initial Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies for the electronic health records certification program. I would imagine that the companies that are able to stay ahead of the curve will continue to grow however, can the 500+  EMR and EHR vendors all survive this regulation wave? If you are an EMR or EHR vendor, choosing the best drug information provider is critical because time to market is vital.

So how do you choose the right provider? You should expect that your drug information vendor offer a variety of delivery options such as database tables that are compatible with Oracle®, SQL Server®, and MySQL® . The vendor should also provide a Software Development Kit (SDK) powered by Java™ or .NET APIs. Drug Databases are generally extremely normalized and complicated to navigate so utilizing a light weight and easy to use API and save tremendous time. The vendor should provide a high level of customer service and demonstrate a sense of urgency to client requests. They should also earn your  loyalty by listening attentively and understand your needs, and then deliver a solution that translates into a mutually beneficial arrangement for both organizations.