To summarize from our 2022-03-30 TAC call, we reviewed these aspects of drug orders:
| Area | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Concept | amoxicillin | Active ingredient (the drug the provider wants the patient to get) |
| Drug | amoxicillin 500 mg capsule | The form of the drug available (e.g., stock item) |
| Order template | amoxicillin [250 mg,500 mg] [by mouth,by feeding tube] [three times daily,four times daily] (defaults underscored) |
How the drug can be (or is typically) ordered. |
| Order sets |
|
Predefining a set of orders appropriate for a specific use case (multiple drug regimens, treating specific conditions, etc.) |
We decided that we need to introduce order templates as a first class citizen within OpenMRS. We’d like to model these aligned with FHIR’s model. A workaround for existing/previous versions might be to introduce these order templates within one catch-all order set (since order set member does have a space for order template), but we ultimately want order template to be a first class citizen that can be associated with a drug outside of order sets.
Our near term goal will be to create a new Talk thread to start modeling order templates.
As far as the opportunity to make urgent progress with UCSF and drug ordering for OpenMRS 3.x, any work to pull drug formulation information from the drug table (instead of frontend JSON config files) would be a step in the right direction.
FWIW, here’s the recording from 2022-03-30 TAC call: