Medication dose vs strength

Mindsurfer — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:30:07 GMT

I've been evaluating v3.0.1, and see from browsing the forum that the Medications section is undergoing a redesign. I've recently had a lot of hospital and new doctor visits. In my experience, both as an EMT and as a patient, the EMT's are happy if they get a list of medications, at all, much less actual doseage information. Doctors, on the other hand, whether in the ED or private practice, are interested in doseage.

The strength of the medication issued may only be indirectly associated with the doseage, and has as much to do with insurance and pharmacy requirements. For example, I was prescribed 6.25mg of metropolol tartrate PO daily. Insurance required that I get 25mg pills, because 25mg pills are less expensive than 12.5mg pills. So I was expected to quarter those pills to get my prescribed doseage. All the doctor is concerned with is that I'm getting 6.25mg/day, not with what form or strength the insurance company will pay for or what I have to do to get to the prescribed doseage.

Currently, the Strength field places a space to the left of the decimal point, if a decimal value is entered in the Strength field. Example: I'm prescribed 7.5mg of prednisone once daily. The pharmacy fills it as 2.5mg pills. I take 3 2.5mg pills, daily, to achieve the prescribed dose. When I put in a Strength value of 2.5, once the record is created, it shows up on screen and in reports as 2 .5, with a space added to the left of the decimal. The abbreviated string the program creates from the Dose, Strength, and frequency is confusing because it looks like this: "3 2 .5 QD". Don't know if it is just a display bug, or if a space is actually added to the Strength value, but it makes determining the doseage difficult. As someone else pointed out, it is much easier for someone to make a mistake either by math or misreading 3 2.5. It is harder to make a mistake or to misread if the dose is plainly displayed. Yes, the number and strength of pills are both important, and multiplied reflect the doseage, but a discreet value for the doseage is less likely to be misinterpreted. Perhaps the Dose needs to be stored in addition to the number, strength and frequency?

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Medication dose vs strength