Re: [Gnumed-devel] further thinking on list of current medications

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 09:54:06PM -0300, Rogerio Luz wrote:

> In Brasil some physicians have been known to send a single pill with all the
> patients drugs for the day. As unwise at this may seem it is an example of
> your question right?

Absolutely, Rogerio. The background of this question was
whether it can be assumed that one pill will *always*
pertain to on ailment (as narrow or as broad as that may be).

"Metabolic syndrome" is the perfect example of the problem.
Here in Germany I am not yet aware of any combination of
statine and antihypertensive. Some will argue "but, it is
the same foundational health issue" while others will want
to track hypertension and hyperlipidemia as separate issue.
And both are right. For example, because by definition 2
criteria do not yet suffice to define metabolic syndrome.

In essence this means we must think about how to represent
such drugs when grouping the current medication list by
"issue" -- present the drug twice, once under each issue ?

Would people be OK with that ?

Hyperlipidemia

        SimvaMet   Simvastatin   50mg     0-0-1
                   Metoprolol    100mg    0-0-1
        BezoDrug   Bezofibrat    ...      ...

Hypertension

        SimvaMet   Simvastatin   50mg     0-0-1
                   Metoprolol    100mg    0-0-1
        RamiGen    Ramipril      10mg     0 0-1

>From this any doctor is likely to know that

 for elevated lipids this patient is taking Simvastatin inside SimvaMet and 
Bezofibrat

 for hypertension she takes Metoprolol in SimvaMet and Ramipril

The two components in SimvaMet will be visually obvious to
belong to the same pill.

Fair enough ?

Karsten
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