No matter what age or strength level a person may hold, all members of the U.S. population are susceptible to the dangerous side effects inherent to many pharmaceutical drugs.
For example, a recent article written by InformationWeek senior writer Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, recounts how a young relative of hers suffered a stroke after being prescribed a course of medication for what McGee refers to as a "fairly benign condition."
Illustrating the enormity of problems presented by prescription drug side effects, McGee recounts the results of various clinical studies that have found between one and two million American citizens require hospitalization each year because of complications experienced after being prescribed medication.
Even more worrisome are the findings of a 1999 study undertaken by the Institute of Medicine, which found that between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths occur in a hospital setting because of preventable errors such as improper dosages or neglecting patient allergies.
In order to circumvent many of the problems related to prescription drug use experienced by healthcare providers across the country, it would be wise for facility managers to partner with a medical technology consulting firm to implement a suite of digitally-based products such as electronic medical records and eprescribing software.
By optimizing a facility's EMR system, doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff will be able to leverage better prescription decisions by having instant access to a patient's complete clinical history to best understand preexisting factors that could result in a prescription drug complication.
And with eprescribing software, doctors can be sure that all medication orders are delivered quickly and clearly to pharmacists to prevent errors resulting from factors such as poor handwriting.
Microwize Technology is a leading healthcare IT consultant offering products such as electronic medical records software and medical billing software from top providers like Allscripts and McKesson, including McKesson's Medisoft, Lytec and Practice Choice products.