Computer-Based Drug Therapy: Challenging More than 700 Years of Traditions

In most medical regimens, drug therapy is essential. Drugs are used for preventing diseases, treating diseases as well as minimising the effects related to diseases that can not be cured. In Finland, three partners - the patient, the physician and the pharmacist - are needed for carrying out drug therapy. However, there is quite little co-operation between the three partners. The physician prescribes the drug, the pharmacist delivers the drug, and medication compliance depends on quite many things, e.g. on the drug information the patient has received. This paper describes how computer-based information technology (IT) is used in a Finnish pharmacy and discusses how this kind of technology could be used in order to make drug therapy more effective and efficient than before. The structured nature of the information concerning prescriptions is an excellent starting-point for using IT. Deplorably, the structured nature of the information is not also the solution for changing the ancient ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: ECIS
• Authors: Riitta Söderlund, Malin Brännback
• Keywords: Drug Information, Drug Therapy, ECIS 2000, ECIS 2004, Structured Nature