Hi Kevin, Just an FYI about the FDA database: it's not complete. I took a look at it about a week or so ago and entered one of my meds. It wasn't there. The manufacturer was. A whole bunch of their meds were. But not the one I use. I sent an email letting them know and asking "why?" No reply received to date. The info from the prescription is included below so you can see for yourself.
Best regards, Bill Drug name: Novolin Insulin 70/30 Human Mfg: Novo Nordisk NDC: 00169-1837-11 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Toppenberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Hardhats Sourceforge" <hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: 2006-03-25 7:36 AM Subject: [Hardhats-members] Pharmacy question: matching ingredients I have a question for the pharmacists on the message board: As I am processing the 280,000 entries in the FDA database, I am matching first by NDC. If that fails, I then have a drug that potentially needs to be added to the VA PRODUCT file. In order for the drug to work with drug-interaction testing later, the drug INGREDIENTS of the new addtion need to match with existing VistA ingredients. But here lies my problem. A great many drugs fail to match ingredients. Here is one example: FDA: ceftazidime pentahydride VistA: ceftazidime In this example, I feel fairly comfortable matching these. But if I make a rule that says, "if simple comparison doesn't match, then allow matching based on FIRST word only", then I worry that I will create a match between two ingredients that shouldn't be matched. So my question is: Is this worry valid? Are there ingredients where the second or third words DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Next, there are going to be new substances/ingredients that have been released by the FDA that have not previously been put into the VA PRODUCT file, or the INGREDIENTS file. For example, Spiriva (tiotropium), I don't know if this is in my VA PRODUCT file or not, but let's assume it is new enough that it is not already there. To add this as a new drug, I will need to add a new ingredient, TIOTROPIUM. But then what about the DRUG INTERACTIONS functionality? I haven't studied this part yet, but I assume there is a file somewhere that lists drug interactions and ingredients that cause them. If I don't have drug interaction data for new drugs, but do have it for old drugs, then providers will have a system that only works some of the time --> dangerous. In the VA system, I assume that new drugs are added one at a time by a pharmacist, on an as-needed basis. Question: Where do they get their information about drug interactions? There must be some database that they access, which should be continually updated. If so, is this a commercial product, or is it public and I could download it somewhere? I guess another option would be to simply add the new ingredients and then shut off the drug interaction system so that no warnings are generated (rather than just some of the time), and we would have the same situation as we do now, where doctors write prescriptions on paper and the pharmacist at the pharmacy fills the order (and *might* do some interaction checking). This is not a bad solution... Perhaps my work to automatically add missing drugs from the FDA database has been doomed from the start because there is not enough data there. (Other missing data is the maximum and minum doses, though I think our site can get by without this.) But frankly, the pharmacy system can't work if the doctors can't order ANY drug. And I feel I have established that we are not going to be able to tap into the up-to-date VA PRODUCT file maintained by the VA somewhere. And even this will not likely contain ALL the drugs (i.e. pediatric drugs, birth control tablets, labor & delivery drugs etc etc.) Your thoughts would be appreciated Kevin ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=k&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
