Electronic Prescribing

Interfacing

Introduction
I would be the first to admit the interfacing of system is not something I have vast knowledge of and would certainly defer to my colleagues in I.S. What follows I hope covers most issues and as we go forward with our implementation others may be added.

System requirements

Any Prescribing system must be interfaced into the Trust's 'HISS' system
Any Prescribing system must be interfaced into any proposed clinical data repository/EPR
The system must be capable of reading and using the Master Patient Index to maintain integrity with the core systems.
The system should have the facility to link into the Order Comms System
The system must interface with the Trusts finance system to provide information that may be required over and above that supplied by the Pharmacy system.
The system must interface with the core Pharmacy system so as to provide:

Consistent reporting on the usage of medicines from ward to individual patient level
Interface between prescribing cytotoxic drugs and the Pharmacy core system cytotoxic module e.g. via the scheduler
TPN as with cytotoxic orders for the Pharmacy core system TPN module
Out-patients prescribing in OPD clinics must transfer direct to the (relevant) dispensary as dictated by location of OPD clinic
In-patients prescriptions and discharge prescriptions must transfer direct to the (relevant) dispensary as dictated by origin of the precription.
The patient medication record of the prescribing system must be synchronised/be the same with that of the core pharmacy system
The entry of a new drug onto the Pharmacy system must update the Prescribing system including details of formulary status/limited prescribing

The system should be able to produce information on the use of clinical trial drugs in a form that can be uploaded into the Trusts Clinical Trial database
Suppliers must identify how in future patients admitted to hospital can have the medication information tranferred direct to the prescribing system. Either from a 'SMART' card or direct from the GP's system across NHSnet.
Suppliers must identify how in future discharge prescriptions/out-patient prescriptions could be transferred to retail chemists connected to NHSnet
The system must have an on-line interface to a validated interactions database
The system should interface with the WeBNF (as developed by the The Clinical & Biomedical Computing Unit of Cambridge University based at the Trust).
The system should provide on-line interface with validated drug monographs
The system should have the facility to interface with pathology system if such a functionality is incorporated within the cytotoxic and TPN modules
Suppliers must agree to their equipment being connected to other manufacturers' equipment and to provide the technical specification of the interface and any other information that may be required to allow such connection.
Suppliers must make a statement that they will allow their equipment to be connected to other manufacturers' peripherals.
To enable access to operational systems, multi-host terminals will be required and where suppliers' proposals include microcomputers, these must be currently available and either thin-clients/Windows Based Terminals/Network Computers or PCs that are IBM compatible.
Suppliers must supply details of interface standards for peripherals: e.g. printers, magnetic storage media, and any proposed maintenance restrictions.
Suppliers must provide full details of their proposed networking solution.