(Partial List as of 3/03/08. Subject to change.)
NDDF Plus Tutorial Sessions - Sunday, April 20 Only
NDDF Plus – Tutorial Part 1
Topic Objective: Discuss NDDF Plus NDC-based descriptive attributes (NDC file, Image and Imprint).
In this session we will discuss the packaged product (NDC-based) descriptive elements that are published within the NDDF Plus knowledge base. Editorial policy that guides the inclusion of products will be reviewed, as will the individual attributes of the NDC file. Related elements such as imprint and image data will also be presented.
NDDF Plus - Tutorial Part 2
Topic Objective: Discuss available NDDF Plus pricing elements (NDC Pricing File, Medicare and Medicaid).
We will review different types of pricing files and pricing data elements that are distributed within NDDF Plus. The scope of the presentation will cover pricing reported to First DataBank by manufacturers and that obtained from government sources (e.g., Federal Financing Participation Upper Limits, Medicare and Medicaid).
NDDF Plus - Tutorial Part 3
Topic Objective: Discuss various therapeutic classification schemas distributed within NDDF Plus and knowledge base content distributed for duplicate therapy screening and consumer drug education.
In this session, various therapeutic classification schemas distributed within NDDF Plus will be presented. We will also review knowledge base content distributed to support duplicate therapy screening and consumer drug information (Patient Education Monographs, Prioritized Label Warnings, and Counseling Messages).
NDDF Plus - Tutorial Part 4
Topic Objective: Discuss definitional clinical formulation components that define the NDC (e.g., ingredients, dosage form, route, strength and specific therapeutic classification). Also discuss name-based concepts that are available to support role-specific applications (e.g., Multiple Access Points (MAPs) and Orderable Medications).
In this session, basic building blocks that define the pharmaceutical formulation of an NDC will be presented (ingredients, ingredient sets, Clinical Formulation ID). Name-based identifiers, such as Multiple Access Points (MAPs™) and Orderable Medication concepts, with emphasis on their usefulness to support medication reconciliation, order entry and prescribing applications will also be discussed.
NDDF Plus™ - Tutorial Part 5
Topic Objective: Present core allergy, interaction and dosing modules.
We will present NDDF Plus™ modules commonly used to screen orders and prescriptions for patient drug allergies, food and drug interactions and dosing. We will also review dosage-based content that can be used to write prescriptions and inpatient medication orders.
NDDF Plus - Tutorial Part 6
Topic Objective: Review disease decision support and AHFS-DI® referential product offerings available within NDDF Plus.
Disease decision support knowledge bases commonly used to screen prospective patient medications for drug-disease contraindications and precautions related to pregnancy, lactation and age will be presented. Disease-based knowledge and referential knowledge useful in medication therapy management (e.g., drug indications, side effects, drug-lab interactions, professional drug monographs) will be reviewed.
First DataBank is pleased to welcome the following confirmed guest speakers
Empowering Patients and Doctors with Lifesaving Answers in Seconds
Ahmed F. Ghouri, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer, SafeMed, Inc.
Healthcare is experiencing a major transformation in which patients and doctors will increasingly participate in shared decision making. This will require powerful tools that provide personalized and real-time insights into: (1) drug safety and quality (2) cost transparency that is payer-specific (3) prospective comparison capabilities of multiple treatment options, (4) real-time translation between professional and layperson terminology, and (5) secure data sharing between multiple doctors who may use disparate IT systems and heterogeneous data sources (e.g., including financial approval systems). This transformation is occurring on an international basis, and SafeMed is utilizing First DataBank’s knowledgebase to empower this change to the benefit of all stakeholders.
Medication Reconciliation–Electronically Bridging
the Communication Gap
Mary M. Halliburton, RN, Consultant and Clinical Liaison, HealthTek Software Solutions
In an arena that dates back to before the Greek Empire, the only thing that hasn't changed in Healthcare is the constant change. Today most Healthcare providers face a hybrid world of paper and electronics, neither completely one nor the other. The resulting challenge to provide the best and safest care is at its most vulnerable. Add the pressure to meet safety goals set by Regulatory Agents like the Joint Commission and CMS and the job becomes overwhelming. Medication Reconciliation is just one piece of the Healthcare pie that crosses back and forth over the whole patient care continuum, relying on information stored at multiple levels and in just as many formats.
While HealthTek can’t solve all the Healthcare issues, partnering with First DataBank, they have found a way, through the automation of the medication reconciliation process, to centralize, not only the up-to-date patient medication information at every point of transition, they have also provided ease of access to and entry of this information for every Healthcare provider. The speaker will outline the challenges facing the medication reconciliation process, as well as the steps taken to create software that enhances patient safety while providing standardization of medication management.
Using First DataBank Tables in Designing Clinical Interventions
Michael A. Mergener, RPh, PhD, Pharmacist Consultant, APS Healthcare
This presentation will focus on the use of First DataBank tables in designing clinical interventions.
Examples of some of the topics covered are:
- The use of the side effects table in designing a prospective DUR additive toxicity alert.
- Using the NDDF Plus tables to estimate the daily therapy cost of atypical antipsychotic drugs and how this differs from the cost per prescription estimate for these agents.
- Designing a targeted intervention on low dose monotherapy of atypical antipsychotic drugs.
Making the Right Thing Easy to Do for Medication Ordering
Anne M. Bobb, RPh, Clinical Informatics Pharmacist, Northwestern Memorial Hospital
The promised impact of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) on quality and safety in healthcare is considerable. However, to a great extent, success with CPOE and clinical decision support (CDS) has varied with few sites demonstrating substantial improvements in patient outcomes. Organizations must overcome significant challenges to realize the benefits of improved medication prescribing with CPOE. Clinical content, in the form of order sentences and order sets, provide the basic building blocks of CDS and make ‘the right thing easy to do’. This presentation will cover the use of basic patient safety principles in the design of orders and order sets to promote the safe use of medications. It will also address the significant challenge of balancing the benefits of drug safety alerts and the potential for alert fatigue. Understanding the etiology of medication errors and designing CPOE systems to be resistant to common prescribing errors and at the same time usable for clinicians is vital to realizing the promised benefits of healthcare information technology.
Nursing-centric IT and Medication Errors: Industry Update
Ann Farrell, RN, BSN, Principal and Senior Consultant, Farrell Associates
Patient safety and medication management have been a keen focus of healthcare organizations since the publication in the early 2000s of the landmark IOM studies that were a “call to action” regarding the prevalence of preventable medical errors in US Hospitals. Initial patient safety-driven IT efforts were targeted at pharmacy systems and EMRs with early emphasis on CPOE. With increasing awareness of the limitations of interfaced niche pharmacy solutions and underwhelming community physician adoption of CPOE applications industry-wide, the market shifted EMR focus to nurse-centric IT, e.g. electronic medication administration records, and bar-code medication administration, with mixed results.
This session will focus on the current state of EMRs related to nursing’s role in medication error prevention, how prior MD- and Pharmacist-centric medication management enhancements have impacted nursing workflows and workloads, why the industry struggles to meet the IT needs of nurses and what we can do to better support nurses, the largest HC professional and IT user group - and key stakeholder in patient safety efforts.
Online Drug Pricing Services - Analy$ource® Online and Analy$ource® Bi-Weekly
John Raymond, Senior Manager, Analy$ource Services for DMD America
This session will provide you with an overview of Analy$ource® Online and Analy$ource® Bi-Weekly, online drug pricing tools from DMD America. Since 1995, DMD America has developed the web technology and support for these services while embedding the First DataBank drug pricing and product data. These tools allow the user to quickly and easily review drug pricing for virtually every National Drug Code (NDC). An overview of the Analy$ource functionality will be demonstrated, including price lookup, product querying, price comparisons, saving of search queries, and exporting of data for further analysis.
Patient Education Circa 2008: The Impact of Public Policy on the Provision of Useful Information
Ray Bullman, M.A.M., Executive Vice President, National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE)
The National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE) is a nonprofit coalition of stakeholders representing health care professionals, consumer and patient groups, voluntary health agencies, government agencies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. A summary of NCPIE patient education activities will be provided along with an overview of FDA activities/regulatory considerations as they relate to consumer medication information will be provided.
Efforts to enhance the distribution, quality, and usefulness of consumer medicine information have been under way – and under federal scrutiny – for over a decade. Collaboration among private sector stakeholders, including NCPIE, drug information publishers, system vendors, and pharmacies have resulted in some significant progress in meeting national goals to provide useful information with every prescription dispensed in the outpatient setting. The current state of written medicine information given the impact / unintended consequences for consumers of outmoded federal policies and practices as they relate to medication risk communication, consumer medicine information (CMI), and Medication Guides will be examined, along with First DataBank and other private sector stakeholder responses.
Electronic Prescribing with NextGen EMR
Kara Erlandsen, Product Manager, NextGen Healthcare
Standardized medication information and electronic verification and transmission of drug benefit and prescription data have offered an unprecedented opportunity to leave the inefficiencies and safety concerns of paper-based prescribing behind. Not only has this begun to drive EMR adoption for practices and hospitals but many state and national groups are making this the cornerstone of healthcare mandates and grant criteria. This talk will detail NextGen EMR’s integration of First DataBank’s medication data with its Formulary/Eligibility, ePrescribing and Medication History offerings.
Optimizing Outpatient and Inpatient CPOE Medication Alerts at Intermountain Healthcare to Reduce Alert Fatigue
Len Bowes, MD, MS, Senior Medical Informaticist, Intermountain Healthcare
Michael Buck, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Columbia University
Many organizations using CPOE systems are reporting that alerts are not always effective in preventing adverse drug events. Many ascribe the ineffectiveness to the problem of “alert fatigue”, where users are overwhelmed by too many clinically irrelevant medication warnings. As a result, some clinicians take active efforts to disable these alerts or passively ignore them, eliminating potential patient safety benefits.
Informaticians and clinicians at Intermountain Healthcare have decades of experience implementing clinical decision support, including medication alerts in the inpatient setting, to improve prescribing and patient safety. This talk will describe our recent experience implementing alerts in the ambulatory setting and how our clinical review committees have eliminated some First Data Bank medication alerts in order to focus users’ attention on the most relevant alerts. We will also discuss other optimization strategies including redesigning the medication alerts to be non-interruptive and storing alert outcomes as part of the electronic audit history for quality improvement evaluations.
Patient Safety- How Technology, Human Factors, and Workarounds can impact our Journey
Kelley Shultz, MD, Patient Safety Officer, Northern Division Catholic Healthcare Partners
Healthcare is an ever-changing world that offers fertile ground for technological advances that promise to help improve patient safety and quality of care. We have bedside barcode scanning, pharmacy robots, smart pumps, and CPOE. We have clinical decision support providing alarms, warnings, alerts, color-coding and lock-outs.
So why does the reliability of healthcare delivery continue to stumble?
In this session we'll discuss how the complex - and sometimes frightening - combination of technology, human factors, and workarounds can sabotage medication delivery and jeopardize patient safety. Together, we will explore some potential strategies to get us back on track.
The Changing Landscape of Pharmacy Reimbursement
Dana H. Felthouse, MBA, President, Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute
John Powers, J. Powers Managed Care Market Consulting, Formerly Vice President, Generics Global Managed Care Strategies (Retired), Cardinal Health
Patrick E. Lupinetti, Vice President and Editorial Director, Government and Pricing Services, First DataBank
Thomas Bizzaro, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, First DataBank - Moderator
The panel will engage in a dialogue about the changing landscape of pharmacy reimbursement. The present and future of pharmacy reimbursement dynamics will be discussed. This interactive session will discuss current areas of concern to the industry, changes on the horizon and what might we do to improve current processes. There will be ample opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
Understanding and Utilizing the Drug Information Framework in your Applications
Mark Brown, Chief Information Officer, Reliance Software Systems
While many vendors and developers want to add medication screening to their systems, they may feel intimidated on how to approach this work and how to implement it. First DataBank's Drug Information Framework, while extremely powerful, can seem overwhelming. The challenge comes with understanding the different screening objects and various types of drug objects, and then making sure that they are interpreting and collecting both results and messages appropriately. The speaker will provide a quick and easy-to-understand overview of the Drug Information Framework; explain how it is utilized in a .Net environment; and show how easily it can be incorporated into applications via industry standards such as XML and SOAP.
Using OrderView in a Non-Interfaced Environment
Bruce Matthias, RPh, Consultant, The IN Group
This session will review the process required to integrate OrderView Data into a non interfaced HCIS vendor system. Considerations discussed will include vendor system functionality, mapping of fields between OrderView and the vendor system as well as additional requirements to maintain the “OrderView” feel within a functional third party CPOE environment.
Sessions presented by First DataBank subject matter experts
External Forces: Their Impact on First DataBank and Our Customers
Numerous external forces within the healthcare industry affect our businesses and market segments, and ultimately have a significant impact on how patient care is provided. In this session we will examine some of those external forces—including HITSP (Health Information Technology Standards Panel), AHIC (American Health Information Community), NCPDP® (National Council for Prescription Drug Programs), CMS, the FDA, SPL (Structured Product Labeling), RxNorm, other terminologies that may become national standards as we strive for interoperability and the possible impact of AMP (Average Manufacturer Price).
Drug Pricing Analysis and Formulary Building with First DataBank’s Formulist Software
This session will provide you with an overview of Formulist, First DataBank’s latest pricing analysis and formulary building software. Formulist allows users to automate their price analysis and formulary building processes, using the National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus). We will also discuss the advantages of using the First DataBank Enhanced Therapeutic Classification (ETC) system in the creation of formularies. Learn how Formulist enables you to build unlimited sets of drugs for price analysis, develop and maintain drug formularies, restrict subsets based on drug attributes, generate graphs comparing drug prices, and export reports into other applications for further analysis.
First DataBank's Role as a Publisher of Drug Pricing Information: Editorial Policy Overview, AWP Litigation Update, Future Plans and Industry Initiatives
Key editorial policies that guide the data collection and reporting of drug pricing data elements will be summarized. An update regarding AWP litigation will be provided, along with an overview of actions expected by First DataBank in response to settlement. Finally, a summary of current and proposed FDB pricing-based industry outreach efforts will be described.
A Tour of the OrderView Med Knowledge Base™: From Orders and Scripts to Renal and Hepatic Dose Adjustments
First DataBank’s latest knowledge base, OrderView, looks at the world of medication content from a whole new perspective—that of orders. But that doesn’t mean it’s just for the physician initiating a medication order. Who more than the pharmacist, the specialist of the domain, needs to work with valid doses, frequencies, true routes, and special instructions, to name just a few key aspects of patient medication therapy? And doesn’t the nurse, in addition to recording the items she is administering, need to know precisely what was ordered? If you want your pharmacy, eMAR, CPOE, eprescribing, medication reconciliation or other application that cares about orders to take a leap forward in usability, join this session to tour the range of functionality in OrderView. The excursion will cover the features in production today, as well as the rich set of features in the imminent phase II release. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of frustrated customers building their own prn reasons, rounding increments, IV to PO conversions, or renal impairment doses, this session is a must.
Getting the Most Out of Drug-Drug Interaction Checking
This session will provide a guided tour of the Drug-Drug Interaction Module. We will describe First DataBank’s editorial policies (inclusion criteria for drug interactions – including additive side effects and inactive ingredients); severity levels; clinical effect codes; reference indicators; monograph sections; and offer tips on implementation. Also, we will review screening for clinically significant inactive ingredients such as alcohol or thimerosal; and provide alert implementation tips for use in advanced settings.
Role-Specific Dosage Screening
In this presentation we will provide a brief summary of dosage screening knowledge options available from First DataBank in meeting subtle differences between order entry, prescription writing, dispensing, and medication administration applications. Implementation tips will be provided on how best to screen for dosage amount and frequency of administration data when little information is known about the patient diagnosis, the clinical route of administration or the dosage type (e.g., maintenance, loading).
Customization Strategies with First DataBank Clinical Screening Content
In this session we will discuss the important differences between the uses of drug information when providing alert-based interruptions in the workflow in contrast to the display of inquiry-based referential information. We will review how the documentation of patient medications, allergens and disease conditions can influence the number of alerts generated; present possible methods of displaying alerts to minimize workflow interruption; and share case studies where end-user sites have created subsets of alerts. Also, we will provide implementation tips on how end-user sites can provide customization overrides to First DataBank alerts; present Drug Information Framework™ customization options; and discuss future development options.
Drug Information for the Consumer
We will describe various aspects related to the delivery of drug information to the consumer. The topic will be introduced by a discussion on what the consumer is actually looking for in health related information. The traditional First DataBank consumer information (Patient Education Module, Counseling Message Module, Label Warnings, Drug-Drug and Drug-Food Interaction Monographs) will be reviewed, followed by a look at how the professional information might be adapted to the consumer audience. Multiple Access Points (MAPs) and the First DataBank Medical Lexicon will be reviewed as navigational methods. The talk will include ideal presentation of consumer information on web portals and other methods of dissemination of health topics for the consumer.
Introduction to First DataBank’s Canada Drug File
Are you new to using the International Drug Data File™-Canada (IDDF™-CA), or just curious as to what First DataBank offers in the way of Canadian drug information? Then this session is for you. We will discuss the Canadian-specific data elements used in IDDF-CA, describe the clinical modules available for the Canadian market, and compare IDDF-CA with the US NDDF Plus data file. We will provide an overview of the recently released enhancements to the Canada drug file including Med Name concepts, drug-allergy module version 4.0 and Canadian drug packaging information from McKesson Canada.
Drug Information Framework™ Functional Overview
This session is for customers new to the Drug Information Framework or those just interested in learning what this API is all about. What is the Drug Information Framework? How is it different from First DataBank’s data products? We will provide a complete overview of the functionality available in the Drug Information Framework, including screening, reference and customization—with a focus on the latest release and enhancements added in version 3.2.
Please visit this page again as we expect to confirm additional seminar topics and guest speakers.
