Ardens has created a suite of prescribing searches to support practices with identifying patients on medication that may need extra monitoring.  The following searches may be of interest to the pharmacy team or clinicians with special interest.

To locate the searches, access the Population Reporting module Ardens Searches > 2.10 Prescribing - Safety searches folder.  This folder is broken down by 7 sub folders.

The ACTION - Polypharmacy search folder includes searches identifying patients on 10, 15 or 20 repeat medication who may require a Polypharmacy Review as they have not had a medication review within the last 6 months.   There is also a search displaying patients coded as Eligible for polypharmacy medication review.

The INFO - Antibiotic usage folder contains searches to monitor antibiotics issued in the last month.    The report under each of the searches provides patient details, the date of issue of the medication, dosage details and the problem that the medication was prescribed for:

The INFO - Asthma and COPD Safety searches are designed to help practices identify respiratory patients with potential safety issues.

The INFO - NHS BSA Medication Safety-Indicators searches folder contains a suite of searches based on the NHS Business Services Associate Medication Safety - Indicators Specification (August 2019) identifying patients with potential safety issues and may benefit from a Structured Medication review:   

The INFO - Patients on repeat medications search folder contains a search identifying patients on repeat medication, however the medication has not been issued within a set time frame (set at the point of running the search).  When running the search, select 'last issued before is' before and then select your timeframe.

The subsequent report will display patient details and details of the repeat medication including the date of last issue.  It may be appropriate to review the medication with a view to removing items from repeat.

To run this search or report, right click and select Run, click Yes.

The Run Parameters box will appear.  Select the appropriate time frame you would like to see medications with no issues.  In the example below, this will display patients on repeat medication where they have not been issued in the last 6 months.  Please pay particular attention to the sentence at the bottom of the box as this will stipulate that time period – if run on 26^th Jan, it will display repeat medication not issued after or on 26^th July 2021.

The INFO - PPI on repeat search folder contains a search identifying patients with proton pump inhibitors on repeat and issued within the last 3 months.

The subsequent report will display additional information, including patient details, name of the medication and date of the last issue.  To view the results of the report, select View Results on the ribbon.

The INFO - Prescriber Audit folder contains a search and report identifying patients who may have been issued medication by non-medical prescribers. This search is based on the users EMIS Job Category.

If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: support-emis@ardens.org.uk