The Ardens Prescribing Monitoring searches assists practices with drug monitoring to ensure the correct tests are completed. It includes medications such as ACE inhibitors, levothyroxine, anticoagulants, DMARDs and more. 


To locate the searches, access the Population Reporting module > Ardens Searches > 2.20 Prescribing - Monitoring folder.



To run the searches, right click on the individual search folder required and select the Run option. Patients that meet the criteria of the search will display in the Population Included tab.


Please note - it is important to only run one folder at a time in order for the searches to run with no issues.


1. Registers and Monitoring - by drug

This search folder will identify patients overdue their drug monitoring and provides a breakdown by each drug. 



Each sub search folder will identify the number of patients currently on the particular drug, with a further sub search to identify those patients overdue their monitoring requirements.



2. Registers and Monitoring - all

This search folder will identify all patients overdue ANY drug monitoring and will not give you a breakdown by drug as per the above.


The All bloods search folder includes a search to provide you with a total number patients who are overdue any drug monitoring. We suggest using the drug specific searches as above, to recall patients and to use this particular search to monitor your overall progress (Please note - practices with greater list size may initially return high volume results and we do not recommend using this search for recalling purposes).



The Annual bloods only search folder will provide details of those patients with long term conditions that require reviews and you may wish to align this with your month of birth recalling.



A search is also available to catch patients that do not have long term conditions that require annual reviews.



Each of the searches above, include an associated report and once run (click on View Results to open the report) will provide you with information on which disease registers the patient is on. 


3. Check before invite 

This search folder will highlight patients where monitoring is overdue despite reminders being sent out to the patient. Practices may wish to chase these patients to ensure the appropriate blood tests are completed.



Please note - patients will remain in this search until all appropriate bloods are completed, therefore, there maybe patients that display in this search where only parts of their monitoring has been actioned and further reminders have been sent.


4. Invitation Searches

The invitation searches allows practices to proactively recall patients for drug monitoring.


The Annual Drug Monitoring folder separates those patients with LTC who you may wish to combine the blood tests needed with their annual reviews. These patients may have already been invited when using the Ardens LTC Recall System.



Each folder contains searches for:

  • Send invite - broken down by patients who are due a 1st, 2nd or 3rd invite. Reports are available to use for messaging in bulk purposes. 
  • Consider invite > EOL/LD/Dementia/SMI - invites to be considered as the patients have a learning disability, dementia or are on the end of life register. 
  • Consider visit > Housebound/Care Home - these patients you may wish to visit as they are housebound or on the care home register. 


The High Risk Drug Monitoring folder identifies patients that may require monitoring more than once a year. The searches are in the same format as the annual reminders. 


Please note - if you would like to check why a patient is displaying in the high risk drug monitoring searches, click on the 'Full Hierarchy' button on the EMIS ribbon and perform a check patient on the 'All HRD + DMARDs with monitoring overdue - All' search. 



Ardens Manager Report

The Ardens Manager Report allows practices to upload prescribing data to the Prescribing dashboard. Further details can be found in the following support article

 

You may also find the Blood Test Due Analyser helpful to alert practice staff while in the record of any blood tests due for the patient and a prescribing monitoring alert displaying if additional monitoring is required (e.g. BP/BIM). The Drug Review template is available to enable recording of data on the initiation and monitoring of drugs. 


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