The Importance of FHIR in Closing Medication Data Visibility Gaps
If you have ever baked a cake from scratch, you can appreciate the value of a well-documented recipe.
Consider how your cake might turn out if your recipe is incomplete and missing key details such as the number of eggs or the amount of sugar. While mixing your ingredients, you might have to stop and search to figure out what’s missing. Or, you might have to make an educated guess and hope for the best.
Assumptions to fill in the blanks can lead to unexpected and unwanted results. Medication management is obviously far more complicated than baking, but sometimes prescribers are missing key ingredients that are necessary to ensure success. Before prescribing a patient new medication, a physician needs specific information, such as details on current medications or conditions that could interfere with a new therapy to make informed decisions. With access to a patient’s complete usable medication history, the physician minimizes the risk of an adverse reaction that leads to dire, or even life-threatening, consequences.