Hospitals can now integrate their local formularies into a hospital-wide electronic version of the British National Formulary.
Adaptation of the BNF to reflect local requirements has been made possible with a new toolkit available on the
WeBNF, which is a version of the BNF developed specifically to let United Kingdom hospital trusts give BNF access to all staff via an intranet. The new facility means that information on local usage restriction, administration instructions and guidelines can be viewed alongside the main BNF text. Therapeutic information is presented according to the traditional BNF classification system with local formulary drugs clearly highlighted.
One hospital trust already using the new facility is Addenbrooke's, Cambridge, whose chief pharmacist, Mrs Helen Remington, is a member of the BNF's Joint Formulary Committee. Mrs Remington, who is also a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council, said that the WeBNF was an exciting development.
As well as allowing access to the BNF via web browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer, it could also be updated centrally to ensure that all users could consult the latest edition.
Commenting on the new toolkit, Mrs Remington said that an additional benefit was that the local formulary was kept up to date with each new edition of the BNF, thus removing the need to rewrite the hospital formulary as new information emerged.
Further information about the WeBNF is available from Ms Jane Weir, Sales and Marketing Manager, The Pharmaceutical Press, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN (tel 020 7820 3283; e-mail jweir@rpsgb.org.uk).