Britain’s best-known medicines guide, the British National Formulary, is now available especially configured to be used on a range of mobile devices including BlackBerrys and Apple’s new iPhone.
The BNF aims to provide prescribers, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals with essential information on the selection of safe and effective medicines for individual patients. It is free to all NHS trusts under a continuing contract with the DH and offers a full clinical decision support service to any authorised users.
BNF’s publishing director, Dominic Vaughan, told EHI Primary Care that the launch of latest edition configured for use on mobile devices forms part of BNF’s digital and online strategy, which includes integrating the reference guide into clinical systems.
“For a few years now, we have been actively engaging in trying to make the BNF integrated with core NHS systems. The ability for any healthcare professional to be able to access this core information on a mobile device will make treating at a patient’s bedside a lot more easier, and help to ensure clinical safety on the spot.”
Digital access to BNF
“Digital access is a key part of our commitment to provide excellence at the point of care. This partnership provides access to the BNF on a wide range of handheld formats, giving real support for health professionals facing prescribing decisions in any situation, and helping them to make the best decisions for their patients every time and there is more still to come with our digital editions,” Vaughan said.
As well, as the mobile version of the BNF, its online sister publication, BNF for Children (BNFC) has also been developed to interface with the NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d), Connecting for Health’s chosen standard for medicines and device identification.
NHS users on NHSnet who are familiar with dm+d coding can search for clinical terminology using the identifier code for the concept in question.
Vaughan said: “Providing clinicians with the tools to make the best decisions for their patients is a key objective of the NHS Connecting for Health programme and closely parallels BNFC’s mission to provide excellence at the point of care.”
Future developments
The BNF is now working with various systems developers, including EMIS and Map of Medicine, to integrate the service more with hospital, GP and e-pharmacy systems. Developers are also looking to interface more of the coding using dm+d and SNOMED for future releases.
An interface with the Microsoft Common User Interface is also being looked at by the BNF, with discussions under way.
Delivering a mobile service
The BNF have partnered with Skyscape to provide its new mobile service. It is used by over 700,000 medical practitioners globally and uses more than 500 trusted references to cover over 35 medical specialties.
Sources used include clinical titles, drug and lab guides, specialty-specific publications, guidelines, health plan formularies, Continuing Medical Education (CME), journals and breaking medical news and alerts.
These are integrated via Skyscape’s SmartLink technology and are available on Palm OS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows powered desktop and Tablet PCs.
Skyscape claim their medical resources enable healthcare practitioners to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, increase efficiencies and reduce medical errors.
Skyscape’s president and CEO, Sandeep Shah told EHIPC: “Skyscape is focused on enabling our physician subscribers to tailor their information both in terms of their specialty as well as geography, in order to make informed and confident patient care decisions.
“The British National Formulary is the latest example of our commitment to bring the most reputable resources to address the needs of British healthcare professionals.”
Pilot experiences
One of the users who piloted the system was Watford-based physician, Dr David Lewis. He said: “Skyscape has taken the quintessential UK drug reference and made it available in an intuitive and affordable mobile format for use at point of care. Beyond that, Skyscape’s SmartLink technology integrates the BNF with their extensive portfolio of UK-specific and relevant titles.”
Dr Lewis added: “For the first time ever, I now have nearly all of the clinical resources I use on a daily basis integrated on a single, portable mobile device. At a time when all physicians face increasing demands on our time, energy and resources, Skyscape comes to lighten our load, increase our efficiency and make it easier for us to provide top quality care to our patients.”
The BNF is a joint publication between the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and aims to provide prescribers, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals with essential information on the selection of safe and effective medicines for individual patients.
It is published biannually under the authority of a Joint Formulary Committee which comprises representatives of the two professional bodies and the Department of Health and have been providing a digital service for several years now.
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