Ardens can assist with drug monitoring to ensure the correct tests are completed, including medications like ACE inhibitors, levothyroxine, anticoagulants, DMARDs and more.
For a summary of the drugs and monitoring tests, please see here.
1. Pop-Up Alerts on Record Retrieval
Upon accessing a patient's record, a pop-up will be generated if the patient is prescribed a High Risk Drug (e.g. a DMARD) and has overdue tests in addition to being under primary care monitoring. The overdue interval is established based on the maximum recommended monitoring period for patients who are stable on their medication, such as 12 weeks. It is important to note that the patient may require more frequent testing than this interval.
To disable the pop-up alerts, please navigate to Setup > Workflow Support > Protocols > Ardens > Pop ups and deselect Drug Monitoring Pop Up Warning.
Bisphosphonate monitoring template
To access the drug monitoring templates, navigate to: Auto-Consultation > ardens DRUG MONITORING
If a patient has been prescribed a high risk drug, including a Bisphosphonate, this icon
will show in both the patients demographics box and on the patient home screen. Click the icon to open the template. The medication must be recorded as a repeat in order for the alert to display.
Home page
The Home page of the template shows a summary of relevant patient history such as pathology results, current medications, family history, blood pressure readings, height, weight and smoking status. Scroll to view the full summary.
Initiation
This page is split in to 3 sections; Assess, Initiate and Follow-up.
Use the Assess section to record any contraindications or drug interactions. A hyperlink to NOGG Contraindications & cautions has been provided. Check recent blood test results by clicking the Bloods hyperlink.
The Initiate section allows you to prescribe Bisphosphonate medication using the Formulary button. Document advice given on taking the medication, common & serious side effects, duration of treatment and provide written information using the resources hyperlink.
Monitoring
If the medication is under shared care, this can be recorded using the Monitoring provider drop down at the top of the page. If left blank, it will be assumed the monitoring is done in primary care. As there is only one 'High Risk Drug Monitoring - Primary Care' code, if a patient is on two or more high risk drugs it is assumed monitoring will be the same for each drug. For information about recording hospital medications, please see the support article.
Tick to record drug monitoring done, review recent blood test results and provide information about serious side effects.
A shared care agreement letter to the hospital can be found on this page if required.
Reports
Reports to assist with patients taking bisphosphonate medications can be located by navigating to:
Clinical Reporting> Ardens Ltd>
Prescribing | Alerts> Musculoskeletal
Prescribing | Optimisation> MSK and Rheumatology
