Mentor drug database: a comprehensive and flexible product that meets the stringent needs of healthcare professionals

The Mentor Drug Database is an accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date drug knowledge base that is used by the majority of GPs in the UK. It provides comprehensive clinical drug information, incorporating currently available UK licensed products, Drug Tariff of England & Wales listings and pricing information. It enables clinical system developers to deliver decision support and patient safety checking, providing the information clinicians need at the appropriate time.

A comprehensive knowledge base

EMIS has been compiling and maintaining a drug database for 17 years and has a wealth of in-house pharmaceutical experience. This comprehensive knowledge base contains details of over 70,000 products and packs. The Mentor Drug Database team collate data from the pharmaceutical industry, ensuring that information is kept up to date with the latest product launches and withdrawals. The database includes:

• Generic medicinal products
• Proprietary (branded) medicinal products
• Over 3000 homeopathic remedies
• Medicinal products that are subject to reimbursement by the Prescription Pricing Authority
• Specialist foods and supplements listed by the Advisory Committee on Borderline Substances (ACBS)
• Drug tariff appliances and dressings

Clinical safety

The safety information contained in the Mentor Drug Database enables clinical system developers to deliver the following checks:

• Drug to drug interactions
• Cautions and product warnings
• Contra-indications
• Adverse drug reactions
• Side-effects
• Dosage checks

Safety checking can be enabled at the point of data entry for prescribing and recording clinical conditions within the patient electronic medical record. The alert messages have varying levels of severity and have been written in a clear and concise format for display to the clinician. The clinical safety checks are specific to each patient's particular medical condition ensuring that alerts are appropriate and provide accurate decision support during each consultation. Announcements by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO Updates) and National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) alerts are included, providing the most up to date best practice guidelines and promoting safer prescribing.

Quality assurance

The Mentor Drug Database is maintained by a dedicated team of in-house pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and IT staff. All clinical data are subject to strictly controlled Quality Assurance procedures that are certified and audited to the BS7799 standard.

Medicinal product information

The following information is supplied:

• Medicinal preparation names
• Ingredients
• Manufacturer
• Preparation packs
• Pricing information
• Formulary information
• Endorsement and reimbursement information
• Categorisation within EMIS drug groups
• Advisory cautionary labels
• Prescribing warnings
• Adverse monitoring indicator
• Scheduled drug category
• National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) alert attributes
• NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d) identifiers
• Preparation linked dosages and maximum daily quantities

Further information is included under license from the British National Formulary and the British Medical Association providing extensive supporting monographs and section information linked to individual preparations.

Preparation information

Preparation descriptions represent drug or non-drug entity covering medications, appliances and dressings. EMIS's long experience in the field is reflected in the list of synonyms and keywords that provide additional searching capabilities for the retrieval of preparations via common abbreviations or previous names.

The following information is supplied:

• Availability
• Schedule category
• NHS status
• Adverse monitoring status
• Equivalent products (generic to proprietary switching)
• Prescription charges
• Dispensing fees
• ACBS indicator
• Nurse and extended nurse formulary indicator
• Legal category
• Maximum daily quantity
• Weekly dosage indicator
• Drug tariff payment category
• dm+d virtual and actual medicinal product identifiers

Preparations are associated with the following pack information, with or without a specific manufacturer:

• Availability
• Manufacturer reference code (appliances)
• EAN code
• Price
• dm+d virtual and actual medicinal product pack identifiers

Clinical terms

The Mentor Drug Database clinical safety data are currently released using NHS Clinical Terms (Read codes Version2). EMIS is in the process of adopting SNOMED Clinical Terms and shares the objectives of the NHS in moving towards full use of this terminology.

Timely updates

Customers have access to the latest information via a secure website from where they can download updates to the Mentor Drug Database. These are provided on a monthly basis along with a newsletter detailing additions, withdrawals and amendments. Requests for changes or additions to the database can be sent directly to the Mentor Drug Database team for inclusion in the next update.

Support

The Mentor Drug Database team have a wealth of pharmaceutical experience and an intimate knowledge of the data. The team provide telephone and email support to customers and each team member has a specialist area of experience to complement their general knowledge of the data. This enables queries to be directed to a specialist who is best placed to answer the inquiry.

Further information

For further information please contact webmentorlibrary@e-mis.com. Click here to log in to our secure document download area.