Re: [Gnumed-devel] gmdrugs structure

[Hilmar Berger]

Hi,

> > There are drugs ('narcotics') you have to follow special rules of
> > prescription (one boolean field).
> In Australia also, but they are generally not in the drug database: its 
> assumed 
> you just 'know' them. ;-)
In Germany, the classification as an 'narcotic' depends not only on the
active substance, but (again :)) on dose and sometimes package size.
Very german indeed.  

> The best idea I can come up with is a 'filter' flag in the 
> link_drug_interaction and
> link_drug_adverse_effect, so we can specify the routes to which this applies. 
> These specifications do occur in the Australian Medicines Handbook (a generic
> drug handbook, closer to what Horst and I have in mind than Rote Liste) but 
> they are unusual.
> (online at http://www.amh.hcn.net.au/)
> 
> route flag values would be like:
>       1 all routes (the default)
>       2 only parenteral (IV/IM/SC)
>       3 only oral
>       4 only IV
>       5 only IM (would you use this?)
>       6 only systemic (i.e not eye/ear drops)
> 
> What to people think?
Sounds good to me. I still believe that a more general approach has its
advantages over this simplification. But well, your design will probably 
be easier to implement. Maybe I am trying to be way too perfect and
unrealistic.  

> As a side isse,
> AMIS also has seperate lists for "proven" "expected" interactions etc. 
> Do we want to add this? 
I consider it a good idea to add information on the quality of a
interaction description. This might prove useful for tracking of
user-entered interactions, too. That way new, suspected interactions could
be entered by arbitrary users and marked as "user-entered, not proven".
BTW, AMIS has additional information on mechanism, prevention and
references to important literature on single interactions. At least
interaction prevention seems to be an quite useful bit of information.
Literature references are helpful in connection with the concept of
information quality tracking. "Mechanism" is more or less a feature for
the more interested user, but add to the quality of a comprehensive drug
database.

Hilmar