Adding and Maintaining Practice Defaults

The Formulary Management Tool (FMT) enables you to add both dosage and prescribed quantity defaults to any item in a formulary that you maintain. Dose and quantity defaults can also be added to items via Tags. Doses and quantities set at Tag level must be indication specific, for example, a dose for UTI over 3 days associated with the relevant UTI Tag.

See Adding Drug Defaults to an Item within a Tag for details.

You can set multiple practice defaults to an item, separating them by age and/or sex range. Default information can be added from the Gemscript defaults or recorded manually.

Note - A default prescribed quantity must be associated with a default dose.

To add a default to an item:

  1. From the Formulary Management screen, double click on the formulary required and then the drug you wish to set the defaults for.
    The dosage screen displays.

    Training Tip - The top right corner includes a link to Drug Information, see Viewing Drug Information for details.
  2. Select the Age/sex ranges Plus .
    The Add age/sex range screen displays.

  3. Select the Age drop-down list, and choose from.

    • All

    • Between, for example, 16Y and 65Y

    • Over

    • Under, for example, under 3Y

      Training Tip - Use 'Y' for years, 'M' for months and 'D' for days.
  4. Next specify the Sex, select from the drop-down list:
    • All
    • Male
    • Female
  5. Select OK to save the Age/Sex settings.
    The dosage screen refreshes with the Age/Sex information, the drug class populates and Add Gemscript defaults activates.
  6. To populate with the Gemscript defaults, select Add Gemscript defaults and, if defaults exist, they automatically complete.

  7. To enter the defaults manually, complete as follows:

    • Dosage - Enter the dosage required, for example, 'One Three times a day'

    • Quantity - If available the pack sizes and costs display to the right

    • Notes to patient - This section is for future development, any notes entered here are not currently imported into the clinical system.

    • Dosage duration (Optional) - Enter the treatment duration in days for this item

  8. Select Save to finish.
Note - The item now displays at the bottom of your formulary with a Drug defaults present indicator.

Dosage Information

As an item can have several dosage protocols, the details that displays change depending on how it is being viewed:

  • If a drug is accessed via its Tag, then the Tag default dosage displays.
  • If a drug is accessed via a direct search, then the practice default dosage displays.
  • If there is no practice default dosage, the drug dictionary default dosage displays if there is one.
See What are Tags? and Adding Items to a Formulary for details.
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