Requires: Adobe Acrobat EHR Case Study Meaningful Use for Meds Tip Sheet   National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus) Multiple Access Points (MAPS) OrderView Med Knowledge Base Prescriber Order Entry Module

Today, there is intense governmental and industry pressure for healthcare providers to adopt the electronic medical record (EMR). The reason is simple: experts view the EMR as the "central nervous system" of a digital healthcare system that will reduce medical errors, improve efficiency and contain costs.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides significant opportunity to improve the nation’s health care system through information technology. In addition the Act provides stimulus funding by promoting electronic health records (EHR) through incentives to providers who are able to demonstrate "meaningful use" of an electronic health record system.

And because so much of modern medical treatment involves drug therapy, any successful EMR/EHR implementation must incorporate a comprehensive and up-to-date drug database. First DataBank's National Drug Data File (NDDF) Plus is the most comprehensive in the industry. Our pervasive use in provider and pharmacy systems throughout the country is a clear indication of the trust we've earned in our more than 30 years as a pioneering industry leader.

We’ve built NDDF Plus from the ground up to offer end users clear and trustworthy drug information in language tailored to their specific clinical and practical needs. NDDF Plus offers the most efficient ways of navigating to exactly the information needed for the task at hand, allowing for more informed decision-making, fewer medication errors and increased patient safety.

Enhancing the Entire Continuum of Care
Industry and government reports have long pointed to paper records as a major source of medication errors, which can lead to adverse drug events. Enhanced patient safety, therefore, relies on physicians, pharmacists and nurses having convenient access to an electronic medical record that contains all pertinent patient information, with fast, reliable links to clinical data.

First DataBank clinical decision-support modules for drug-drug, drug-allergy, and drug-food interactions offer exceptionally flexible ways to create applications that categorize and display potentially harmful interactions using a range of techniques that reduce alert overload without compromising patient safety. First DataBank's expert clinical staff separates the interactions into highly granular categories, and then carefully and consistently reviews each module to create subsets of the most clinically relevant drug interactions. This reduces "noise" that less relevant interactions create, and eliminates the need for clinicians to spend undue time researching alert messages. We also offer an array of dosing content options that can reduce dose-related medication errors in the workflow.

Finally, we are known throughout the industry for clearly written patient education materials designed to promote therapeutic compliance and enhance patients' knowledge about their care. By using web-based access to their EHR, patients can view important information on drug therapy, such as counseling messages and label warnings — medication support for active and informed healthcare consumers.

First DataBank: supporting EMR/EHR system developers with superior medication functionality.