Medication Checks

Provision of Decision Support for Medication Interaction Checking

Scenario Details: Terry has a successful group support meeting that Friday morning and makes the acquaintance of an individual who swears about the weight loss properties of a Chinese medicinal herb. Intrigued by the possibility, Terry logs into the patient’s medical record system and enters the name of the herb into the medication reconciliation module. This function retrieves his medication list, past adverse drug reactions, and cross-references that information with an authoritative herbal supplement database. The system identifies a potentially dangerous cross-reaction with one of his prescription medications. The next morning after David receives an alert from the CDS system regarding the drug inquiry, David e-mails Terry to provide him with his own experience using this herb in a medical setting. David recommends against taking the supplement, as the potential side effect is a real danger. Terry e-mails back thanking David for his interest and makes a joke about there being “no easy fixes”.

Actors: Patient (Terry), Provider (David)

Requirements:

Requirement #	Description
3.3.1	The System shall have access to relevant patient medical data including diagnoses, medications, adverse events, radiology, labs, appointments, etc.
3.3.2	The System shall have access to relevant authoritative pharmacy reference knowledge bases.
3.3.3	The System shall have access to patient specific adverse drug interactions, allergies and sensitivities.
3.3.4	The System shall provide a mechanism for generating automated messages when the patient uses the medication reconciliation function and receives a warning.