The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7170 p545-548
20 October 2001

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Letters to the Editor

Pharmacy software (2 letters)

Move to Windows

From Ms L. Fairbrother, MRPharmS

I would just like to highlight the need for community pharmacists to change their DOS PMR platform — of which many of them are unaware. As more and more software moves to Windows, many software houses are beginning to withdraw support of their DOS systems already. I am concerned at the unacceptable pressure this is putting on many of us to change our PMR systems quickly.

While I recognise that Windows is essential for future functionality, eg, electronic prescribing, I would urge the profession to wake up now to the changes required, so that prescription services do not suffer.

We only have until the middle of next year and decisions need to be made now before the Christmas rush.

Lindsey Fairbrother
Leek, Staffordshire

Patient is the ultimate client

From Mr S. Critchlow, MRPharmS

It is with interest that I read the article on the “Benefits of recording clinical interventions” (PJ, 11 August, p188) and the letter, “Cater for your client’s needs” (PJ, 22 September, p382).

We certainly believe that al computer suppliers should provide an intervention monitoring system. As a supplier of pharmacy computer systems, we have provided our users with a pharmacy interventions module for 15 years. The initial module was used to allow pharmacists to evaluate their performance and this approach moved quickly to being a system where the pharmacist could collect data on a palm computer.

The results of this approach were published in The Pharmaceutical Journal (19 August 1995, p247). With the implementation of electronic prescribing this was further enhanced to store the intervention against the patient medication record (PMR). We have recently upgraded the system so that it is web-based and will not only provide the needs of hospital pharmacists but is also targeted at providing the whole needs of an electronic health record system.

It is applicable in both community and hospital pharmacy as well as by general practitioners, and when used in a hospital can provide a complete clinical system to all health care professionals.

This system is due to go live shortly with a hospital and general practitioners accessing the same information. To this end the pharmacists’ interventions are seen simply as a patient note in the same way that a nurse or doctor may make a note on the patient’s record and appropriate information will be available at all times. We believe this information should be made available to all health care professionals and the patients themselves using web technology.

Stephen Critchlow
Managing Director,
ASC Computer Software Ltd

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