Drug Allergies and Interactions

This feature is not available to clients based in Canada at this time. Clients using the Rcopia/DrFirst feature will have interaction checking automatically enabled in those locations.

Users will now see drug allergy and medication interaction warnings when entering medication orders in the EMR for any drug allergies recorded on the patient facesheet. This includes notifications for both the name-brand and generic versions of medications. 

Entering Drug Allergies 

When adding a new drug allergy to the patient chart, users must now select an allergen from the new medication database. 

1. Open the patient chart and click Edit Patient. 
2. Scroll to the Allergies and Food Restrictions section and click Add Allergy.
3. Complete the Allergy entry:
   • Allergy type: Select Drug from the drop-down. This is a required field.
   • Allergen: Begin typing in the name and then select the correct option from the drop-down list. This is a required field.
   • Reaction: Type in the patient's reaction to the allergen.
   • Reaction type: Select Allergy or Adverse Reaction from the drop-down.
   • Severity: You can choose the severity of the reaction from one of the options on the drop-down.
   • Onset: Select a date from the calendar, if known.
   • Treatment: Type in treatment for the reaction to the allergen
   • Status type: Select Active or Inactive from the drop-down.
   • Source: Select one of the available options Self-Reported, Documentation provided, or Verified/Tested.
4. Use the Add Allergy link to add additional allergies as needed.

Allergies on Custom Orders

When a drug allergy is added to the patient facesheet, the EMR will automatically warn users of drug allergies and interactions when creating a Custom Order.

1. From the Patients tab, click on the desired patient tile.
2. You will be taken to the patient’s Information tab. Click on Doctor’s Orders.
1. Important: The Doctor's Orders tab can be renamed based on your organization's preference, so your facility may call this tab something else.
   
3. Click on the Custom Order button.
4. On the Medication tab, fill out all required fields indicated by an asterisk (*) and any of the additional fields. For the purposes of this article, we will only be discussing the Medication field. Detailed instructions on creating a custom order can be found here.
1. Begin typing in the name of the desired medication, and then select the correct option from the drop-down menu. When a medication is free-typed rather than picked from the database, the drug reference database will not be used to check interactions. You will see the following warning.
2. If the patient is allergic to the medication you have selected, or if they are taking a medication that reacts negatively with the medication you have selected, you will see relevant warnings.
   
3. Interactions can be expanded to view the interacting drugs, severity, and potential clinical effects.
   
4. Severe alerts have a red indicator, moderate interactions are displayed with a yellow indicator, mild interactions are displayed with a blue indicator. When a medication cannot be checked against an existing order on the patient’s profile the system will indicate which profile orders cannot be checked against the current pending order.
5. For further instructions on creating a custom order, check out this article.

Allergies on Quick Orders

Allergy warnings and notifications also appear on Quick Orders once you click Review Order.

1. If the patient is allergic to the quick order medication you have selected, or if they are taking a medication that reacts negatively with the medication you have selected, you will see relevant warnings.

Allergies on Meds Brought In

When a medication brought in by the patient is set to Continue on Admission or Managed by Patient interaction checking and allergy alerts will automatically display as part of the order verification progress.

Interaction Timeout

If, for any reason, the interaction checking function times out, you will see an error message, regardless of the method by which you are creating the order.

If you do see this error message, please manually check the patient's medications for possible interactions.