Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Allow interaction checks even without dosages

I wish that I could simply enter a list of medications without the dosages and the program would still do interaction checks. I mean, does it really need to know if the patient is on 10mg or 20mg of Lisinopril? I personally don't always have to know their exact dosages but I do need to know the meds.

Many patients who come see me barely know the names of their medications much less the dosages.

I encourage them to bring their meds with them and I often get a pill box full of medications, none of which have a name attached to them.

Where do you get all these? I know you will think this is too many steps, but maybe it will be offset by the fact that it is more accurate.

If you use Firefox (due to its superior ability to manage user names and passwords) or a 3rd party password keeper like Robocop, you could very quickly click on ePocrates at the top of the script writer. I say you need a password manager, as it will only be quick if you can get to the home page without typing anythiing. So, for me, it is three clicks, and I am to the screen with Interactions. There is other useful information there as well. I think you get a free 60 or 90 days. I will let you know when I get my email from them.

I don't know where I get all this stuff Bert. My personality tends to analyze everything to the nth degree and try to find more efficient and better ways to do it. I'm the same in the O.R. which I'm sure is a joy for everyone. Hell, it even wears me out sometimes.

I think it frustrates me because AC is really so close to achieving greatness. Right now it's just goodness. Really good, goodness.

I really don't actually need the interactions although it would be nice. I just wanted AC to pop-up and show it in red if the med I prescribed interacted with another med. I rarely am going to look up every med to assure it doesn't interact with the other 20 meds the patient takes.

Plus, I just don't like having to know the dosage before you can put it in and use the system to it's full potential. Dosage should be optional.

I just don't understand why the dosage is a mandatory requirement to use this feature in AC. If it interacts, it interacts no matter the dosage.

What ends up happening is that I "guess" the dose so we can enter the meds. This sure isn't very good medicine by any means.

I just put it in like I was going to, and then see. But, to be honest, I stopped using it, because just about every med was an interaction. As I have said before, we should be able to decide between A, B, C, D and X. Everything was red.

I hear you about the little things. This is why I am against the PM. But, I understand why others are for it. I just know that AC doesn't really go back and fix the little things that people talk about now, so they definitely won't when 1) PM is being worked on a lot and 2) there are a million suggestions about that.

I would even give up certification. I am not much of a businessman so I don't know the difference between moving forward or you will get bypassed or just remembering what got you to this point and staying with that.

There are so many little things that we all find every day. Like either pulling the chart from the last window (if you use it) or, better yet, having a button which pulls the last saved chart. Given that my nurse triages from a different area, my Patient List doesn't contain the last patient. So, when the patient says, "Oh, by the way, can you refill Atarax?" I have to first embarrass myself by looking at the Superbill to remember the name of the patient, then type it in, and finally pull it up. One click would be nice.

Agreed again. The red alerts are everywhere. And yellow and whatever.

I just like the idea of my M.A. or me accidentally prescribing Bactrim when the patient has a sulfa allergy. I would know the patient is allergic but if I didn't have the chart open in front of me and just told my M.A. to eRX the patient a Rx for Bactrim, then off it goes.

It would see so simple to not have it all or nothing but be able to choose one or both. Allergies would be great.

'cause God knows I added that sulfa allergy on 8/2/10 at EXACTLY 3:17 pm. Maybe we can get it to say 3:17:42 so we know the time in seconds. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Why do you actually need the time on there. And, change the font and make it black. Make it legible. The allergy that is shown doesn't need to stand out. When you write a medication that IS an allergy, then bright red fireworks and sirens should go off.

So agree with the color and time thing. My O.R. crew made a snide comment about the time on the H&P for the allergy. It also says "entered by M.A. 8/2/10 at 3:17pm". They thought it was hilarious that my EMR printed out who entered the Allergy and at the exact time and date. Like I'm tracking my staff to know who and when things are entered. Now the O.R. staff thing I'm more of a control freak than they already thought.

It's fine to document the date entered and the person who entered it. It doesn't need to be red and it sure the hell doesn't need to be printed on the H&P. Hell, JCAHO doesn't even require that.

I am glad you agree. See, these are the little things that will probably never change. I think when AC was in its infancy, Jon was still spending a lot more time documenting. So, I am sure he went, "What the hell! Why do I need the time on the allergy alert?" But, now I think he sees patients like a half day a week. Not good or bad. It just is.

The next time your OR staff says something about it, just say, "I know. It's ridiculous. I told him we need seconds on there."

I enter the allergies myself, and my AC user name is "Jon". So on every referred patient (which is most of them) the referring doc gets a note which includes "allergies are 'Updated by Jon on 08/20/2010 at 08:23 PM'."
Not a very professional look for these notes I send to referrers.

You make a very good point. I used to think I just didn't like it, but it was trivial. That is not. When you think about it, I see very little advantage to having it show who updated it at all.

Maybe we need to add users like"

"the CDC"

or

"a certified and professional allergist"