Re: [Gnumed-devel] PHP to drug db

[Hilmar Berger]

On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Ian Haywood wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 07:03:04PM +0200, Hilmar Berger wrote:
> > > 4/ drug_routes appears to be 'orphaned': a link in product?
> > yes, but I would prefer a link in generic drug, since a product may have
> > different parts (say creme + suppository).
> 
> Putting it in generic drug would create problems of consistency. "oral
> flucloxacillin" has pretty much the same side-effects/indications etc. as "IV
> flucloxacillin". for example.
I'm not quite sure if this is correct : why shouldn't intravenously
administered drug preparations have the same indications/whatever as an
oral/s.c/inhaled preparation , given the different ways of metabolisation
and pharmacodynamics in those cases ? I'm quite sure that you won't use
i.v. betablockers to treat your patients chronic hypertension (while you
could use oral preparations), and you won't choose tablets to treat the
tachycardic patient in your ER. 
  
> The issue of multi-part products is difficult, similar to triphasic Pills
> (different tablets have different doses), I'm not sure how to deal with this
> without complicating the database structure a great deal.
I had another look on how AMIS deals with this problem - they have the
drug route in products (as you suggested), however, products points to the
generic drug and compound links are created on product level (you might
want to have a look at  test-area/gmDrug/amis-create_tables.sql for
details). So one point for you - and a half for me :).

Hilmar