A drug reference solution is an essential part of your organization’s workflow – helping your care teams reduce medication errors, enhance patient safety, and improve efficiency. However, a solution is only effective if your clinicians actually want to use it.

How do you select the right drug reference solution for your organization – one that will not only provide the actionable, relevant clinical information your care teams trust, but is also easy to use and fits into the workflow and routine of your prescribers, pharmacists, and nurses?

Pharmacist with laptop and medicine

Here are some questions you may want to consider when selecting your drug reference solution to determine if it is the right fit for you, your organization, and your care teams.

Who authors and edits the content?
No healthcare practitioner can be expected to be an expert in all areas of medication therapy. When consulting a drug reference solution for support in researching appropriate and safe treatments, professionals need confidence that the content has been developed by a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary team, all of whom have advanced training, extensive clinical experience, and specific subspecialty expertise.
  • Key questions to ask
    • How many clinicians are on the content development team? Do you have an additional external network of reviewers?
    • Are the authors specialists in the topics they cover?
    • What specialties do they cover?
    • Do the members of your content development team continue to practice in real-world clinical environments, like hospital pharmacies, on a regular basis?
    • Do the authors of your drug reference solution collaborate with your business’s other subject matter experts, such as the authors of your clinical decision support solution?
How frequently is the content in your drug reference solution updated?
Medication decisions need to be based on the most current evidence available. Pharmacists and clinicians need to trust that the resources they use to inform their decision-making synthesize current medical literature to deliver evidence-based, actionable information that reflects contemporary standards of care. You also want to feel secure that your solution is being continually updated to incorporate the latest practice guidelines and industry news.
  • Key questions to ask
    • How often do you review content?
    • Is all the content in your solution updated on the same schedule?
    • What is the process for updating the content?
    • Are important updates published immediately?
    • How are essential information, warnings, and shortage alerts that may impact our practice communicated?
Does your solution provide actionable dosing recommendations that reflect current evidence-based practice, or does it rely primarily on information from drug manufacturer labels?
Pharmacists need timely evidence- based medical information when making critical decisions at the point of care. Some drug references, however, rely on product labeling that can quickly become out of date. Drug references that continually update content based on daily surveillance of industry activity and primary literature provide care teams with a resource that aligns with current evidence-based practice and harmonizes clinical care.
  • Key questions to ask
    • What sources are consulted for your updates?
    • Do you provide guidance when there are conflicts between manufacturer dosing and guideline dosing?
    • Do you provide expertise and a willingness to develop content in unique fields of study beyond your core dug information?
    • Do you provide resources and content to support the treatment and management of patients with medically complex conditions that may impact their drug therapy?
    • Do you provide clinical context around your dosing recommendations?
    • Does your editorial team have the capability to monitor trends and respond quickly with advisories and key recommendations for frontline care teams?
    • Is your team receptive and responsive to user feedback?
Will your drug reference solution work with our other clinical decision support (CDS) solutions?
Using resources from multiple publishers increases your organizational-wide risk for miscommunication. It can lead to gaps in care and different understandings between pharmacists and the rest of the clinical team. Providing a drug reference that aligns with current, evidence-based disease information gives care teams the ability to operate from the same playbook, saving time and harmonizing the care they provide to their patients.
  • Key questions to ask
    • How long has your drug reference solution been collaborating with a clinical decision support solution?
    • Do the content teams of the two solutions work together to develop harmonized content? What results has that collaboration yielded?
    • Does your solution collaborate or align with CDS to provide pharmacists with evidence-based clinical insights reflecting current diagnostic and treatment practices in addition to drug reference information?
    • Does your solution include important context on the conditions most commonly seen in clinical practice?
    • Does your resource align with your patient education solution?

Is your drug reference solution easy to use and relevant to a wide variety of clinicians?

Drug reference resources are not just used by the pharmacy department. Nurses, in particular, are heavy users, and need information on administration, storage, preparation, and more. Prescribers may also refer to the drug reference for deeper research on treatment options. It’s essential for the whole care team to have easy access to the answers they need at the point of care. Toggling back and forth between different mobile applications or requiring multiple clicks between your online drug reference and clinical decision support resources is an inefficient use of your team’s time.
  • Key questions to ask
    • How easy is it for care teams to access other CDS solutions, like aligned disease information, from your drug reference workflow?
    • Does your mobile solution provide full content sets with the same depth of information that you provide online?
    • Is all information accessible within a single mobile application, or does it require use of multiple apps?
    • Does your drug reference meet the needs of other clinicians outside pharmacy who will also use it, such as the nursing department?
    • Can our frontline clinicians find fast answers at the point of care, or are your drug resources primarily geared for those interested in research and a deeper dive into pharmacology?
    • Does your drug reference integrate within your EMR workflow?
    • Do you provide drug comparative content to help our pharmacists consider alternative therapies and substitutions?
Can the drug reference solution connect with your formulary and improve medication selection?
Effective use of resources can minimize a healthcare organization’s overall medical costs and improve patient access to more affordable care and an improved quality of life. It’s important to know if a drug reference provides formulary content that is customizable, incorporated within their content, and easily accessible to physicians, pharmacists, and other care team members. This way, your care team can focus on cost-effective and clinically- sound medication therapy and work towards improving patient outcomes.
  • Key questions to ask
    • Does your solution allow healthcare organizations to add customized formulary drug list content and hospital drug policies?
    • Does it integrate customized content within the drug reference?
    • Does your solution provide clinical teams access to formulary information during the clinical decision-making process, well before a prescriber has gotten to the medication order within the EMR?
    • Does formulary content appear in both online and mobile search results?
    • Does your formulary content integrate into other resources, such as clinical decision support?

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