Hospitals and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) are under enormous pressure to reduce medical errors, improve efficiency and contain costs. Achieving these goals relies increasingly on robust clinical decision-support systems and reliable interoperability among all of these systems throughout the enterprise. And because medical treatment often centers on drug therapy, a comprehensive and up-to-date drug database is an indispensable part of making these goals a reality.

First DataBank's National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus) is the most comprehensive, flexible, and up-to-date integrated drug database in the industry. Our wide use in the variety of information systems within hospitals and IDNs—and throughout this market segment in the United States and Canada—is a clear indication of the trust we've earned in our 30 years as a pioneering industry leader.

Clinician adoption of electronic healthcare—be it electronic health records (EHR), computerized physician order entry (CPOE), pharmacy dispensing, and/or electronic medication administration records (eMAR)—depends on clinicians feeling confident that they're receiving reliable information within their typical workflow. First DataBank supports that goal in numerous ways.

For example, clinicians need powerful clinical decision support for safety-related measures, such as medication reconciliation. Our Multiple Access Points (MAPs) provide that support. A complete and flexible drug vocabulary that employs recognized best practices, MAPs™ contains built-in relationships among terms that not only facilitate medication reconciliation, but generally improve the efficiency of drug communications. In part, this occurs because the variety and flexibility of the descriptions in MAPs™ enable you to zero in on drug information within your normal workflow, whether you're a physician, pharmacist, or nurse.

Similarly, electronic systems must simplify and speed up physician ordering. Our OrderView Med Knowledge Base does just that through physician-friendly navigation that minimizes the number of steps (or clicks) to get to the proper order, while still linking to all of the appropriate product detail for pharmacy dispensing and nurse administration. And you can narrow pick lists based on patient-specific factors, such as patient age, weight, and organ function.

Other features offer additional decision support for your safety and efficiency goals. There's the way our drug databases accommodate FDA-mandated bar-code scanning. Or the way we reduce alert overload without compromising patient safety by deploying clinical modules that check for drug-drug, drug-allergy, and drug-food interactions. Or our array of dosing content options that can reduce dose-related medication errors in the workflow.

 

In short, First DataBank sets the standard for providing user-centric drug information for hospitals and IDNs.