About Sensitivities - a description
Some patients may be particularly sensitive to a particular product or type of product.
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Log this on the Pharmacy Manager system in the patient's details screen, using the Sensitivities tab.
You can add, amend or delete Sensitivities on this tab.
Sensitivities can be used to record true allergies, such as
a Penicillin allergy or idiosyncratic responses to a particular
specific ingredient or a related ingredient, such as systemic first generation
antihistamines, to indicate that a patient experiences excessive sedation.
There are two levels of severity: Normal
and Important.
True allergies, as in the Penicillin example above, would be classed
as Important.
Important sensitivities require acknowledgement of the sensitivity report
in the message box. Otherwise, a normal sensitivity report appears as
a reminder only and you do not have to acknowledge it. You can also add
a comment to any sensitivity; this can act as a reminder, or to record
further details. This will display in the message box if you select any
relevant product to dispense.
There are two types of sensitivity: Ingredient and Family.
Ingredient Sensitivities
Pharmacy Manager checks sensitivities across the active
generic ingredients of a product. No special significance is attached
to a particular brand, strength or pack size. For immediate recognition
of sensitivity after you have entered it, it may be more logical to use
generic products wherever possible.
When attaching a sensitivity to a patient for a combination product, try
to ascertain which ingredient is responsible, then wherever possible attach
a sensitivity to the patient, using a product that contains that single
ingredient. Pharmacy Manager will quite happily crosscheck ingredients
for multi-ingredient products, but in doing so, it may generate an alert
on a common ingredient that is not related to the patient's problem. In
this case, it might help to add a comment to the sensitivity.
Family Sensitivities
Pharmacy Manager allows you to attach a pharmacologically
related group of products as a family sensitivity, for example, sensitivity
to a family of products.
If a patient is flagged as having sensitivity to a 'Family', then any product
within that family will produce a warning if dispensed. To prevent unnecessary
alerts, many of the families operate explicitly. For example, "Diuretics,
thiazide with K supplement", for sensitivity purposes, is not related
to "Diuretics, thiazide with K sparing diuretic". This allows
you to record a specific sensitivity to a particular type of combination,
and is useful when a patient is comfortable with one type of combination
but not the other.
Pharmacy Manager indicates that there is a product family relationship
available and displays a message giving details of the relationship. Again,
you can add a comment.
See also Adding a Sensitivity
