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Guidelines - How They Can Be Used...
A guideline can include one or more of the following:
- a recommended prescribing regime,
- supportive text for the prescription of drugs,
- drug information for the patient issued at the time of prescription,
- generalised advice on the treatment of the condition,
- a text of patient advice as an alternative to drug therapy, which can be printed out and given to the patient.
- a means of displaying other information, such as videos or pictures
Although each patient consultation is individual, nevertheless there are prescriptions or standard patient advice that might routinely be offered as a result of a consultations for the most common conditions.
Using Guidelines, it is likely GPs will find this a quick way of prescribing acute prescriptions without the need for making a direct entry on Therapy Add. Prescriptions raised through guidelines are automatically recorded on the patient's Therapy record.
If alternatively, you offer patients a printed text as a memory jog, or to summarise what you have said, for example, in insomnia, then using Patient Advice in Guidelines will allow text to be stored on the system and printed out as you require it, and handed to the patient. The text can be edited at any time so that it is instantly up-to-date. This is an advantage over pre-printed sheets which (a) take up space to store, (b) may be difficult to locate, and (c) may be out of date.
