For a variety of essential business functions that range from purchasing to inventory management and drug-substitution programs, drug wholesalers need constant access to the most comprehensive and up-to-date drug information available. That's why so many—including major drug wholesalers in the US—rely on First DataBank. For over 25 years, our pioneering National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus) has been the most respected and widely used source of descriptive, pricing, and clinical drug information in the healthcare industry.
Simple, Flexible Product Searches
Managing the complex logistics of your operation is, of course, highly dependent on your ability to stay on top of an industry inundated with drug products, prices, and packages that grow and change constantly. You have to stay on top of that information to achieve your business goals of enhanced customer service, transaction accuracy, and operational efficiency—while minimizing inventory costs.
Consider, for example, a case where you're serving as the sole source for an independent pharmacy. That pharmacy relies on your drug substitution program; it trusts that when it has a standing order for certain generic drugs (say fluoxetine in 20mg capsules, 100 capsules to a bottle) that you'll always send them the least expensive equivalent product available that fits their standing order.
The only way to meet such demands is through ready access to drug products that you can group in a variety of ways, including: package size, therapeutic class, lowest cost, brand/generic status, or manufacturer.
And that's exactly what First DataBank enables you to do. In addition to being the de facto standard for drug information throughout the healthcare industry, our exemplary vocabulary practices, the granularity of our data, and our name-based drug identifiers simplify extremely focused product searches—right down to package-level details.
Reduced IT Costs
Equally important, we can help you keep operational costs down, especially for information technology, because we remove the headache and ongoing expense of creating and maintaining huge drug databases in an industry where products and prices change at a devastating clip.
Essential Building Blocks
In short, by drawing on the following components, First DataBank sets the standard for providing user-centric drug information for drug wholesalers.
NDDF Plus is the leader in supplying comprehensive coverage of descriptive, pricing and clinical information on drugs. It encompasses medications approved by the FDA, plus commonly used over-the-counter drugs and information on herbals, nutraceuticals, dietary supplements, and medical devices.
Comprehensive and up-to-date are the key concepts here, since drug content is dynamic and notoriously complex to maintain. It's essential, therefore, that the drug database behind drug wholesalers' applications be the most reliable in the industry. NDDF Plus is that database. It also offers you the most efficient ways of navigating to exactly the information you need for the task at hand, allowing for more informed decision-making.
Multiple Access Points (MAPs) include the flexible, user-centric drug identifiers that enable you to zero in on First DataBank drug information quickly and efficiently within your normal workflow. MAPs incorporate our proprietary Enhanced Therapeutic Classification (ETC) system and comprehensive drug identifiers. ETC allows you to quickly find products within therapeutic classes and to revise clinical information at as general or specific a level as necessary. MAPs also use Medication Name concepts, which are name-based identifiers that allow for more flexible implementations, and facilitate intuitive access to all relevant information.