White Paper

War against Medication Errors:

Creating an Error-free Medication
Eco-system

A white paper on medication errors, medication pathway, causes, proposed

error-free medication ecosystem leveraging HIPaR BoDK - a wholistic body of
drug knowledge platform

September 2010

Author
Venkateswar Reddy Melachervu
Head of Solutions and Technology, HealthNet Global

Contributors
Dr.Sanjeev Sharma, MD
Clinical Pharmacologist, Apollo Health City, Hyderabad

Venu Madhav Thirukachi

Team Leader, HealthNet Global

HealthNet Global Limited

Ground Floor | Life Sciences Building | Apollo Health City Campus | Jubilee Hills | Hyderabad 500033| India
Phone: +91 40 2355 2322, 4433 4437 | Fax: +91 40 4433 4444
www.healthnet-global.com

© All rights reserved.

 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Copyright
The information contained herein is provided for the purposes of feedback and evaluation of the concepts touched
upon. The information contained herein is protected, among other things by the Trade Secrets Act, as codified, and
any improper use, distribution, or reproduction is specifically prohibited. No license or right of any kind whatsoever
is granted to any third party to use the information contained herein without a written agreement from the Author
and/or his organization. No other use of the information and data contained herein is permitted. Under no
condition should the information contained herein is re-used in any manner whatsoever by any third party without
first receiving the express written permission from the author and/or his organization.

© All rights reserved. 2010.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

“To err is human; To persevere, prevail and prevent the errors is a means beyond human
and towards divinity!”
- Unknown to most, known to few

“Not by merely abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from reaction!
Nor by renunciation alone can one attain perfection!!"
- Shrimadhbhagavad Gita, Karma Yoga (Chapter 3), Verse 4

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Acknowledgements
Some of the content on medication errors is compiled from various web resources which is
used as is. The immediate response of Dr.Sanjeev Sharma on forming some form of clinical
councils for my question of how do we achieve credibility and acceptability for the HIPaR BoDK
content was the genesis for the clinical governance model proposed in this paper.
Some of the impactful and visionary phrases used in this white paper (bold italics) are property
of the author and are being copyrighted.

I’d like to express my sincere thanks to Dr.Ranjith Roy Chaudhury, Governing Board Member,
Medical Council of India, for his valuable inputs and support for this initiative.

My sincere appreciations and thanks are due to Dr.Sanjeev Sharma for his contributions
towards the sections – the current state of HIPaR, Content Sources, Global Benchmarking,
Certification and reviewing and providing inputs for the rest of the sections.

My sincere appreciations and thanks are due to Venu Madhav for his contributions towards the
sections – Global Benchmarking, HIPaR Data Constructs.

It’d be unfair on my part if I do not thank for the kind support provided by Shri Sreerama
Murthy Seetepalli (father of one of my ex-colleagues Syam Sunder Seetepalli who co-ordinated
this for me) who authored Visual Bhagawad Gita in guiding me to find an apt verse from one of
the world’s most ancient Body of Knowledges for human beings – Shri Madhbhagawad Gita-
which I read as a child without fully comprehending and appreciating the complete meaning of
what I was reading which as the age passes by one feels to find more relevance and tries to find
more comfort in.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 4
Objectives ............................................................................................................................. 7
Prologue................................................................................................................................ 7
Medication Errors .................................................................................................................. 7
Medication Pathway and Points of Failures............................................................................ 8
Causes ................................................................................................................................... 9
Prevention and Improved Patient Safety.............................................................................. 10
HIPaR: Body of Drug Knowledge (BoDK) ............................................................................... 13
HIPaR BoDK Salient Features ........................................................................................... 13
HIPaR BoDK Data Constructs ........................................................................................... 13
HIPaR BoDK Offerings ..................................................................................................... 15
Evolution of HIPaR .......................................................................................................... 16
Holistic Clinical Governance ................................................................................................. 17
Next Gen Content Administration System ............................................................................ 18
Content Sources .................................................................................................................. 22
Global Benchmarking .......................................................................................................... 22
Certification ........................................................................................................................ 23
Vision .................................................................................................................................. 23
HIPaR BoDK Applications ..................................................................................................... 24
Epilogue .............................................................................................................................. 26
About Author ...................................................................................................................... 26

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Document History
Version Date Description
0.2 4th Sept 2010 Concept inception and
creation of white paper
anatomy - Venkateswar
Reddy Melachervu
0.3 23rd Sept 2010 Content Update – Draft
1.0 7th Oct 2010 Completed the first draft
content

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Objectives
The objectives of this white paper are:
 To understand and analyze the medication errors
 Attempt to derive an error-free medication eco-system
 Arrive at quintessential role of Body of Drug Knowledge- BoDK
 Understand HIPaR BoDK
 To define and propose a model for HIPaR BoDK content update and administration that
helps tackle medication errors
 Clinical Governance Model for HIPaR BoDK

Prologue
Everyone falls ill sometime rather the other in one’s lifetime and takes medication, if
not many times. Medication errors can occur at any point in the medication
process and in any care setting. Medication errors can cause long-lasting
problems and in the most severe cases, they can result in death. The
frequency of medication errors and preventable medication-related
injuries represent a very serious cause for concern. Victims of
medical mistakes frequently have to endure additional
medical attention and as a result, face expensive medical
bills that they are responsible for paying because of
someone else's errors.

Medication Errors
In the US alone, 1.5 million Americans are sickened, injured or killed each year by errors in
prescribing, dispensing and taking medications of which 7,000 are deaths, annually1. On
average, at least one medication error per hospital per patient occurs each day which equals
400,000 errors each year, according to IMNA2, USA. The extra medical cost of treating drug-
related injuries occurring in hospitals alone, conservatively amounts to $3.5 billion annually3.

As defined by a dictionary, error is an act that through ignorance, deficiency, or accident

departs from or fails to achieve what should be done. Specifically, medication errors can be
defined as giving the wrong medicine and/or the wrong dose at the wrong time and can be

1 st
Source : Medication Errors Harming Millions, The Washington Post Report, 21 July 2006,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072000754.html and
st
Daily News Central, Health News, Medication Errors Cause 7,000 Deaths per Year, 21 July 2006 -
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0002352/53/
2
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
3
Source: Office of News and Public Information News from the National Academies, National Academy of Sciences
Medication errors injure 1.5 million people and cost billions of dollars annually: Jul 2006.
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11623

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

categorized into omissions (failure to act correctly) and commissions (acted incorrectly),
broadly.

The practice of medicine, pharmacy and nursing in a healthcare setting is complicated and
involves many steps from pen to patient. One study showed that the most common types of
medication errors were a wrong dose, a wrong drug or a wrong route of administration 4.
Medication errors can occur at any point during the medication process—procuring the drug,
prescribing, dispensing, administering and monitoring its impact—but occur mostly during
prescribing and administering stages.

Medication Pathway and Points of Failures

The following picture depicts various failures of medication errors at each point of what I define
as Medication Pathway, comprehensively.

5
Figure 1: Medication Pathway and Points of Failures

4
Source: Phillips J, Beam S, Brinker A, Holquist C, Honig P, Lee LY,Pamer C. Retrospective analysis of mortalities
associated with medication errors. Am J Health Syst Pharm. Oct 2001. 58(19);1835-41
5
© Copyrighted phrase.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Causes
Medication errors may occur more because of contributing factors such as identical doses,
dosage forms or routes of administration, similar packaging or labeling, incomplete knowledge
of drugs, illegible handwriting, verbal order errors and even lack of an appropriate knowledge
base, performance and knowledge deficits of the drugs, non-availability of the up-to-date
information of the drugs like warnings, precautions etc. It is estimated that confusion regarding
drug is thought to account for 25 per cent of all medication errors. Most of these errors happen
either because of improper or lack of drug information, human errors in medication pathway
etc.

One more research report6 shown below depicts various causes for the medication errors.

Figure 2: Most Frequently Reported Causes of Medication Errors (Percentage):

7
Voluntary Reporting System 2000-2004
The below visual depicts the comprehensive causes for the possible medication failures at each
point of Medication Pathway.

6
Source : Data - Santell, J.P.et al. 2005. MedMarx Data Report. USP Center for the Advancement of Patient Safety.
© 2005 The United States Pharmacopeial Convention Inc. All rights reserved. Failure to act in accordance with
education and training – McCarthy and Leatherman – Performance Snapshots. 2006 –
http://www.cmwf.org/snapshots
7
Source : http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Performance-Snapshots/Medication-Mistakes-and-
Adverse-Drug-Events/Medication-Mistakes--Types-and-Causes.aspx

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

8
Figure 3: Causes of Medication Errors

Paradoxically, what augments the problem is the absence of a Blame-free Medication Error-
Reporting Mechanism in healthcare provider setting that could keep account of errors through
an internal audit process recognizing the fact that human error as an inevitable consequence
and deploying systems in place to minimize consequences of medication errors. The world is
yet to witness such an established mechanism for blame-free medication error reporting and
management which accounts for the point of having hardly any data on medication errors in
healthcare provider settings, especially for countries like India.

Prevention and Improved Patient Safety

Every health care professional can recall that 9 out of 10 prescription errors are preventable. In
order to ensure error-free medication procedures, hospitals adopt what is known as 5 Rights:
 Right drug
 Right dose

8
© Copyrighted phrase.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

 Right route
 Right time
 Right patient

In spite of 5 Rights being followed diligently, it is observed that in different countries, up to

12.9% of hospitalized patients suffer at least one adverse event during their admission out of
which 10.8% to 38.7% per cent were caused by medication errors9.

There are two more rights that the global medical fraternity has added, of late, to this list
making it 7 rights:
 Right indication
 Right documentation
Notwithstanding, the world is yet to witness any significant improvement in prevention of
medication errors.

With the increased healthcare awareness, importance, growing concerns on the fatal un-
desirable consequences, reducing medication errors and improving patient safety by arresting
or minimizing medication errors has become one of the highest priority areas for the healthcare
eco-system players – healthcare providers, pharmacists, doctors, nurses, patients etc.
Enhancing patient safety by minimizing or arresting medication error requires a systems-based
approach in order to control the conditions that contribute towards errors.

A little more concentration, a little more discipline, little more process and systems, a little
more care, a little more faith can save the entire mankind from so many injuries, permanent
damages and deaths caused due to medication errors. After all, the motivation is for a better
healthcare that leads to beautiful lives.

Enhancing the judicious use of medications and minimizing medication errors have always been
key area for the healthcare fraternity but lacked the necessary systems, platforms, ever
increasing up-to-date drug knowledge of tens of thousands of generics and brands and the
optimal automation and integration with Hospital Information Systems along with the requisite
operational processes for seamless controls of tackling medication errors in the care settings.

With the emergence and deployment of pervasive IT systems in the healthcare settings like -
HIS, HMS, ePrescription - care providers have embraced the needed systems and platforms that
provide a base for tackling medication errors which can be supplemented by the manual
operational components enabling a seamless point and click systems that help the care givers in
reducing or arresting these errors. Additionally, IT can help build and deploy seamless, blame-
free medication error reporting and management systems that are equally important for this
endeavor for the fact that if you cannot measure it; you cannot improve it.10

9
Source : Quality India - Safe Medication, Safe Healthcare - http://www.qcin.org/nbqp/qualityindia/Vol-3-
No1/medical.htm
10
Source: Quote of Lord Kelvin, mathematical physicist, engineer and pioneer of thermodynamics.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

The below visual depicts and summarizes the aforementioned concepts and notions in this War
Against Medication Errors11.

12
Figure 4: Error Free Medication Eco-system

However, what is critically lacking today, is a comprehensive, up-to-date drug knowledgebase

that is quintessential and core of the whole solution for tackling this challenge that embodies
the ever increasing and changing knowledge and characteristics of the tens of thousands drug
molecules13 for it is increasingly becoming humanly impossible to remember the ever growing
brands, generics and their innumerable number of characteristics that play pivotal role in this
war against medication errors14 by the healthcare eco-system players. Nonetheless, reducing
medication errors is not a mere onetime activity but an ongoing process of quality
improvement in the care settings.

11
© Copyrighted phrase.
12
© Copyrighted phrase and conceptual model.
13
It is estimated that there are around 50,000 generic brands and 6,000 generics prevalent in India alone today.
These numbers are expected to significantly go up in next 5 years as more generics get added that come out of
patent regime.
14
© Copyrighted phrase.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

HIPaR: Body of Drug Knowledge (BoDK)

HIPaR BoDK is the Embodiment of Comprehensive Drug Knowledge from HealthNet Global
offering complete drug related information such as drug - drug interactions, drug-lab
modifications, and drug-food interactions, drug-disease interactions, generic search, brand
search, combination drug search, alternate brands for a given brand/generic, adverse reactions,
indications, contra-indications, drug dosages, route of administration, precautions and
warnings, banned drugs, ATC15, retail pricing and packaging information, manufacturers details
etc.

HIPaR BoDK complies with international disease coding standards like ICD-10/9, HL-7,
EphMRA16, WHO indications standard etc. that make it easy to integrate with other
clinical/hospital management software, pharmaceutical software or any healthcare software. It
can also be shared across networks in hospitals, organizations and academic institutions etc.

HIPaR BoDK platform is designed keeping with the objective of helping the healthcare fraternity
in creating an integrated error-free medication eco-system automating various pharmacy and
pharmacological processes, 7 rights frameworks on top of a contemporary Body of Drug
Knowledge.

HIPaR BoDK Salient Features

 Generic search, brand search, combination drug search, alternate brands for a given
brand/generic
 Indications, contra indications, drug-drug interactions, drug-Lab modifications, drug-
food/alcohol interactions
 Adverse reactions, precautions and warnings, dosages
 Pharmacokinetics, Anatomic Therapeutic and Chemical Classification System - ATC
 Mechanism of Action of the drug
 Manufacturer search, retail price, packaging details
 Information on dose form, route of administration, Strength
 Disease classifications, ICD-10 coding
 Banned drugs, bar codes, essential drug list, storage conditions etc.
 Therapeutic duplication and equivalent
 Patient counseling messages
 Drug content administration, period updates (role-based user management for security
and content quality)
 A platform approach that helps the healthcare fraternity in flexibly adapting, integrating
for achieving their objectives

HIPaR BoDK Data Constructs

15
Anatomic Therapeutic and Chemical Classification System
16
European Pharmaceutical Market Research Association

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 5: HIPaR BoDK - Generics Data

Figure 6: HIPaR BoDK - Brands Data

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 7: HIPaR BoDK - Drug Manufacturer Data

Figure 8: HIPaR BoDK Open Data Model

HIPaR BoDK Offerings

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

HIS Integrated HIPaR HIPaR

HIPaR Doctor Mobile HIPaR
HIPaR Web App SaaS API

Mobile Phones
Thick client HIS/HMS Custom Built Web Service
– J2ME

Installs and Thin and thick Drug Supply Integration

SOAP Support
runs on a PC clients Chain with Portals

ePrescription

Figure 9: HIPaR BoDK Offerings

Evolution of HIPaR
The product embodies the expertise and experience of almost 10 years of evolution of its
content and application logic from the group company of Apollo Hospitals founders. The
content quantity of HIPaR BoDK as of early 2010 is as below.

Parameter Quantity
Brands 15000
Generics 4065
Indications 1477
Contra-indications 1229
Adverse reactions 1182
Drug-Drug 669
Dosage Information 1098
Precautions and Warnings 1312
MoA 827
Manufacturers 935

The following set of next gen capabilities are the key drivers for the evolution of HIPaR BoDK
 Multi-tiered content aggregation, editing, update and administration process enabling
logical separation of content activities - editing, review, approve, reject etc.
 Constitution of two-tiered clinical governance board - pharmacology and clinical
practice – that enables the authenticity, sanctity and control over the content quantity
that impacts lives
 Updating and releasing the clinical content periodically
 Enhancing the characteristics of drugs in the drug knowledgebase – special conditions
and dosages, drug-disease, therapeutic duplication information, drug dosages for special
conditions like renal failures etc.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

 Patient counseling messages - drug information to the patient in his language – is

lacking

Holistic Clinical Governance

One of the critical points for an acceptable and credible body of drug knowledge is a clinically
governed and enterprise class content administration system. The HIPaR BoDK content
administration is clinically governed as below:
 Clinical governance of the HIPaR BoDK healthcare content by instituting the following
councils:
 Clinical Pharmacologists Council – council of prominent clinical pharmacologists
drawn across Apollo group
 Clinical Advisory Council – council of prominent clinical practitioners/medical
services directors drawn across Apollo group
 Executive Governance Council – council/board comprising of technology, clinical
experts and executives that drive the direction of HIPaR BoDK
 An enterprise class Next Generation Content Administration system
 Multiple content sources aggregation
 Multi-tiered
 Distinct roles with role-based user management
 Auditable and traceable content editing, update, rejection/approval and
database administration
 A content administration team comprising of bachelor and master pharmacists
lead by a clinical pharmacologist

This section focuses on the clinical governance and the next section on the Next Generation
Content Administration system.

The below picture summarizes the concepts visually for the holistic clinical governance
addressing the hitherto identified content sources.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Next Gen Content Administration System

The core to the design of the Content Administration System is the fundamental concept of
multi-tiered, role-based, and clinically governed Content Update Process that we’ve uniquely
developed for this purpose considering the need to ensure the sanctity of the data that impacts
the lives of the human beings and the focus on the India specific content. The following picture
depicts the multi-tiered content update process that incorporates the Holistic Clinical
Governance addressed in the previous section.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 10: Next Generation Clinical Content Administration Platform

We at HealthNet Global have analysed, understood, recognized and built a tiered, role-based,
auditable enterprise class content management system as an integral part of Next Generation
HIPaR BoDK platform and have instituted content development team (pharmacists, clinical
pharmacologists etc.) and experienced software development team which have developed and
deployed an enterprise class Content Administration System for HIPaR BoDK where a special
team of pharmacists (B.Pharms and M.Pharms) lead by a senior clinical pharmacologist are
editing and updating the content aggregating the clinical content from various popular and
credible sources to it one of the world’s leading BoDK for India and beyond.

The BoDK Content Administrator offers drug content sources aggregation, content entry,
content review, content approval, audit information, content publishing using Internet
leveraging cloud technologies, role-based secured user management and database
administration etc. enabling a robust anytime and anywhere secured system. Some of the
screen captures of BoDK Content Administrator are shown below.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 11: HIPaR BoDK Content Administrator Role-based Login

Figure 12: HIPaR BoDK Content Administrator Auto Suggest of Brands, Generics etc.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 13: Content Administrator - Generic edit Screen

Figure 14: Content Approver Login

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 15: Content Administrator - Approver Screen

Content Sources
The following are the content sources used hitherto for cleansing and updating the existing
content:
 Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Product Monographs
 Indian Pharmacopoeia Version 2010
 Wolters Kluwer’s Drugs in Pregnancy & Lactation Version
 Central Drugs Standard Control Organization website
 http://cdsco.nic.in/
 Australian Registry of Therapeutic Goods and Medicines -
https://www.ebs.tga.gov.au/ebs/picmi/picmirepository.nsf/PICMI?OpenForm&t=PI
&k=0&r=/
 Health Canada website
 http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/dpd-bdpp/start-debuter.do?lang=eng
 New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority Website
 http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/
 US FDA website
 http://www.fda.gov/

Global Benchmarking
We’ve benchmarked HIPaR BoDK platform clinical fields/capabilities and content with some of
the national and international products used for the similar purposes and summarized below.
The benchmarking focus was more on the clinical fields/capabilities as the clear data on the
quantity of the content of these products is hardly available. Clearly HIPaR BoDK stands out and
on top with its longer list of supported capabilities.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

Figure 16: HIPaR BoDK Global Benchmarking

Certification
Acceptability and credibility of the content is critical to the core of HIPaR BoDK given its impact
on human lives. This typically, comes with accreditation/certification by renowned institutions
and organizations globally that are independent and have acclaimed expertise in the relevant
subject matter. In our research, we are yet to find such a straight body that certifies drug
knowledge or drug database.

We are in the process of identifying and pursuing the certification with organizations that have
relevance to pharmacy and pharmacology.

Vision
Transform HIPaR into next generation ubiquitous body of drug knowledge platform that plays
a pivotal and core role in the prevention of medication errors, integrated medicine
management throughout the medication pathway empowering healthcare fraternity with a

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge
comprehensive, ever up-to-date, seamless, credible body of drug knowledge at a touch of a
button that endeavors to create an error-free medication eco-system
HIPaR BoDK Applications
Efficient Drug Inventory Management
Prescription Audit
Drug Education for Patients
Efficient Drug Licensing
Drug Education for Nurses
Drug Education for Medical Students
Brand Equivalent
Convenient drug identification by patients
Generic Based Prescription
Claims Validation
Drug Dosage adjustments for Renal Failure
Drug Dosage adjustments for Hepatic Failure
Contra Indications
Dosage Error Prevention
Prevention of Drug Errors in Pregnancy
/Lactating Women
Customized Dietary Plan for Chronic Patients
Prevention of Therapeutic Duplication
Institutionalized Body of Drug Knowledge
Find Manufacturer of a brand
White Paper
Generic based Drug Inventory control using HIPaR BoDK helps
achieve efficient control on stock refills.
HIPaR BoDK helps the Pharmacist conduct a prescription audit
providing indications for the prescribed drugs in Hospital
HIPaR BoDK can be used as education and drug awareness by the
patients
HIPaR BoDK helps drug regulators to avoid Look Alike, Spell Alike
and Sound Alike drugs while licensing
HIPaR BoDK enables nurses for educating the Patients on Drugs
and monitoring Patients on drug therapy
HIPaR BoDK helps students with a comprehensive drug
knowledge base
HIPaR BoDK enables Pharmacist and Doctors find a Brand
Equivalent of a Drug
HIPaR BoDK helps patients conveniently identify a Drug for
consumption based on the Color/Image?
HIPaR BoDK enables healthcare providers especially public health
care providers in implementing a generic based prescribing in
place of brand based prescribing
HIPaR BoDK enables Insurance Providers to Validate the
Insurance Claims related to Drugs - Age, Gender, and Disease
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors to adjust drug dosage for patients
with renal failure.
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors to adjust drug dosage for patients
with hepatic failure.
HIPaR BoDK can alert the doctors about the contraindications of
the drug they are prescribing enhancing the Patient Safety
HIPaR BoDK enables Health Care Providers in preventing dosage
errors
HIPaR BoDK enables Health Care Providers/Doctors in preventing
Drug Errors for Pregnancy/Lactating Women
HIPaR BoDK enables dietitians in creating a customized dietary
plan for Patients on Pharmacotherapy in case of chronic
conditions
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors in preventing therapeutic
duplication of the drugs
HIPaR BoDK enables health care providers in institutionalizing
drug knowledge across the organization sans boundaries
HIPaR BoDK enables healthcare providers, pharmaceutical
companies, regulators to find manufacturers for a given
generic/brand
© All rights reserved. 2010
 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

HIPaR BoDK can act as a reference tool for financial decisions by

Price reference for Drug Purchases healthcare providers, pharmacies, insurance providers and
patients
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors, pharmacists, pharmacologists for
identifying drug - drug interactions and taking necessary actions
Drug-drug interactions for enhanced patient safety. Helps medical students, pharmacists
in learning.
HIPaR BoDK enables biochemists, micro biologists and doctors in
Drug-lab interactions right interpretation of lab results avoiding unnecessary or wrong
treatment.
HIPaR BoDK enables dietitians and doctors plan a customized
Drug-food interactions dietary for a patient for the better management of a disease
avoiding treatment failure and adverse effect.
HIPaR BoDK enables anesthetists to plan anesthesia for patient
Drug-anesthesia interactions on drug therapy avoiding mishaps during the anesthesia.

HIPaR BoDK enables doctors to warn the patients regarding the

Drug-Alcohol interactions alcohol consumption for mishaps while patient is on drug
therapy.
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors in assessing the risk benefit ratio to
Precautions, warnings prescribe drugs to special category cases(Pregnancy, Lactation,
Pediatric and Geriatric etc..)
HIPaR BoDK enables researchers and medical students in
Pharmacokinetics analyzing and understanding Pharmacokinetic profile of drugs.
HIPaR BoDK enables researchers for doing drug utilization studies
ATC information and DDD and better inventory planning control
HIPaR BoDK enables medical students in learning about the
Pharmacological category and sub-category
pharmacological classification system and helps the pharmacist
information in identifying therauptic substitutes.
HIPaR BoDK enables Hospital nursing staff in proper
Nursing considerations reconstitution, storage, administration and monitoring the
patient on drug therapy.
HIPaR BoDK provides unique opportunity in India for regulatory
agencies, Manufacturers, Insurance providers, health care
HIPaR Unique Article Code providers etc. To uniquely and unambiguously address the health
care item across the systems.
HIPaR BoDK provides the ICD10 Disease code information for any
ICD-10 Information given disease and vice versa.
HIPaR BoDK enables medical students and doctors in learning
Drug Search by Disease drug therapy for various diseases.
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors and patients in knowing and tackling
Drug Side Effects the side effects while drug therapy.
HIPaR BoDK enables patients and pharmacists to identify
OTC information of a drug whether a drug is OTC drug or not.
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors and pharmacists to identify the
Generic Synonyms global generic synonym.
HIPaR BoDK enables doctors, regulators, pharmacists, nurses and
Look Alike, Sound Alike and Spell Alike Drugs
patients in preventing the medical errors and enhancing patient
Information safety.

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Drug Packaging - bulk packaging and
retail/selling packaging information
Integrated Pharmaco-vigilance
HIPaR BoDK enables pharmacy and health care providers in
maintaining the better inventory management.
HIPaR BoDK Platform helps the healthcare providers and
regulators in automating the process and deploying the system
online for seamless easy-to-use access for pharmaco-vigilance in
reporting and verifying the adverse effects along with periodic
reports

Epilogue
As per a latest article in a medical journal17 (2008), the medical errors kill anywhere between
48,000 – 80,000 Americans annually and the article claims majority part is due to Medication
Errors. Imagine saving a fraction percentage of these lives by creating an error-free medication
eco-system which can still run into saving tens of lives annually which is more than the meaning
for our endeavor of War Against Medication Errors and we firmly of the view that this
transformation should pick up the momentum now and should not stop at saving mere tens of
lives.

We humbly appeal to the healthcare fraternity through this white paper to come forward for a
collaborative endeavor, join hands with us for an inclusive effort to wage and win the War
Against Medication Errors18.

Together, let us march forward and work towards ushering in an Error-free Medication Eco-
system19 leveraging the comprehensive Body of Drug Knowledge, first in the IP care setting and
then beyond IP care setting in the journey of Touching Lives.

About Author
Venkateswar Reddy Melachervu
Venkat is a well-rounded professional with technology expertise, business acumen and proven
timely results in conceiving profitable ideas and transforming these profitable ideas into
products and solutions across multiple domains leveraging cutting-edge technologies ushering
positive impacts to the top lines and bottom lines – start-ups or grown-ups, locally or globally.

Venkat is the member of the founding team of HealthNet Global and currently associate vice
president and head of technology and solutions. In this role, he heads technology and solutions
and is responsible for company’s solutions, services, technology strategy, roadmap and concept
selling to - enterprises, governments, partners and investors.

Venkat earned bachelor's degree in electronics and communications engineering with

distinction where he was first exposed to the nature and significance of electronics,

17
Source : Clinical Review: Medication Errors in Critical Care: Critical Care 2008
18
© Copyrighted phrase.
19
© Copyrighted phrase.

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 War Against Medication Errors: Body of Drug Knowledge

telecommunications and information technology convergence and the power there-of, while
developing hardware, software and firmware for his final year project Digital Filters Utilizing
Microprocessors on Intel 8085. This work has significantly influenced his professional journey he
has embarked there on.

He believes in technology in isolation has no meaning neither to business nor to humans unless
seen in a problem solving or value creation context, dares to dream, cares to win and works
towards transforming the lives through technology. More details can be found about him on
Linkedin.

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