HEALTHCARE SECTORS

The requirement for hospital staff to have to up-to-date, comprehensive drug information is well established. The advent of ever more complex drug therapies and the drive to reduce preventable errors and adverse drug reactions make rapid access to this data an essential component of modern healthcare practice.

First DataBank Europe's products are integrated into a range of hospital inpatient and outpatient prescribing, transcribing and pharmacy dispensing and stock control systems as well as a number of specialist systems including dialysis, renal and oncology. For a full list of hospitals using our products, please click here.

When embedded within a hospital’s electronic prescribing system, the Multilex Drug Data File (Multilex DDF) provides active clinical decision support which streamlines the path to the prescribed drug and generates real-time, patient-specific alerts, such as drug interactions or contraindications to the use of a drug, if there are potential clinical problems.

In a hospital scenario, rapid changes to medications are common and clinical decision support is required at each stage of the patient’s care. Multilex DDF ensures that clinical decision support is provided at the point of decision making or transcribing rather than after the decision has taken place or after the patient has received the drug. It also reduces the amount of repetitive checks that occur manually, for example when patients transfer from one ward to another, or when a new drug chart needs to be created.

If further information on a drug is required, such as more detail on dose and administration, clinicians can consult Multilex DDF’s comprehensive referential information. 

In systems where patient information is unavailable to support active clinical checking, such as pharmacy dispensing and stock control systems, Multilex DDF’s referential information can be used. If e-prescribing is not implemented on the hospital wards, clinical decision support can be integrated into a hospital’s pharmacy system, supporting pharmacists with prescription reviews.

This combination of active clinical decision support and referential information helps support and promote safe and effective prescribing, dispensing and administration activities across the organisation.

For organisations without electronic systems, Multilex DDF’s referential information is available in a stand-alone application, the Multilex Browser. Hospital pharmacists find this useful for screening purposes as it provides electronic comprehensive medicines information which is accessible at the point of use. It may also be made available on handheld devices to support mobile healthcare professionals including on-call or peripatetic pharmacists or on a Toughbook device to support emergency care workers.

To read more about the benefits of Multilex DDF within secondary care, please refer to the case study links in the Related Documents section of this page.