Re: [Gnumed-devel] Medication sort order and safety standards

[Jim Busser]

On 2011-08-25, at 5:49 PM, Jim Busser wrote:

> While I did not yet find a source article, I am locally advised that there 
> exists a medication safety standard which posits better safety when a 
> patient's list of drugs is sorted by therapeutic classification.
> 
> Setting aside that a drug could exist under (and could be used for) more than 
> one indication, it does make sense to group them according to whatever 
> classification they happen to be known under.
> 
> In the US and Canada, it appears that facilities will use the American 
> Hospital Formulary System code however since GNUmed supports ATC codes, would 
> it make sense to offer an additional sort order
> 
>       ATC
> 
> although -- if we do not wish to consume column space by including the ATC, 
> we could make the left column
> 
>       Brand (by ATC)
> 
> ??
> 
> Ideally (maybe for GNUmed future instead of GNUmed next) it would be 
> clinically useful to be able to group drugs under their ATC category for 
> example
> 
> A Alimentary tract and metabolism
> C Cardiovascular system
> G Genito urinary system and sex hormones

By comparison, the AHFS seems to have 31 top-level categories, and so the ATC 
(which uses some but not all of the 26 letters A-Z) would be slightly more 
compact than AHFS.

        http://www.ahfsdruginformation.com/class/index.aspx

-- Jim