Help Prevent Clinically Significant Drug-Food Interactions

The Drug-Food Interaction Module provides high-level decision support for healthcare professionals, including physicians, pharmacists, dietitians, and nurses. Providing drug-food interaction information to patients and caregivers is recognized as a community practice standard, and required by JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations).

As self-care and ambulatory medical care are emphasized more and more, the importance of an educated patient and caregiver is evident. The information in this module aids in the process of establishing and implementing safe diet-drug regimens.

Identifies Only Clinically Relevant Drug-Food Interactions

The Drug-food Interactions Module generates alerts on the potential of interactions occurring between certain drugs and foods or food components, when used in combination. In addition, this module can generate cautions and other advisory information specific to the potential drug-food interaction detected. Alerts and other messages are presented only for clinically significant drug-food combinations, thus avoiding message overload.

Drug-Food Interaction Inclusion Criteria

The inclusion criteria for drug-food interactions relate to severity, documentation, and the complexity of patient management. If an interaction is effectively managed by taking the drug with food, for example, then it is more appropriate to address the issue with a prioritized label warning. A drug-food interaction monograph would not be generated.

For more complex or severe drug-food interactions (for example, cytochrome P450 enzyme inhibition by grapefruit juice constituents), more support information is provided. These interactions generally require some patient monitoring, if not proactive dose adjustments, recommended in the module.

Documentation types considered appropriate to meet our inclusion criteria are (in order of importance): well-designed clinical studies, small clinical studies or case reports, or manufacturer labeling recommendations.

Messages Printed on Prescription Labels

This module determines the type of drug-food interaction it encounters. It can then produce condensed text messages and complete monograph information on the nature of the interaction. These results can generate a two-line message intended for prescription label printing, as well as access to the appropriate monographs. Note that the body of evidence available on drug-food interactions is limited, and not nearly as extensive as that for drug-drug interactions.

These label messages identify the most important "take-home message" about the medication being dispensed or administered. They emphasize the key points a physician or pharmacist would ideally want the patient to remember.

A consumer version of this module, Drug-Food Interactions for Consumers, is also available. Written expressly for consumers, it offers convenient access to drug-food interaction information from the Internet or other electronic platform.