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