[Gnumed-devel] Should EMRs warn about drug warnings and recalls?

[Jim Busser]

I have not used an EMR sufficiently to have experienced alerts fatigue.

Some of this may be nicely handled by extrnal tools such as FreeDIams. Even so, 
at minimum, if a drug has been taken off the market on account of being 
dangerous (if not illegal) it may be advisable for the EMR itself to assist to

(a) issue no new prescriptions and
(b) avise patients to stop taking it

Such notices and warnings could occur at the level of the "brand" or at the 
level of the "substance".

When the focus of a recall is restricted to the brand-level (not affecting 
other supplies), something would be wrong with their quality control or 
sabotage etc.

Substance-wise warnings will arise from issues with
- the substance "inherently" or
- some function of dosage (DDD) or drug or disease interactions

Therefore is there any useful concept of storing within GNUmed a substance and 
a Brand

        availability / status / flag

where the default is null (normal) and possible alternate values could include:

        withdrawn
        caution
        restricted

which reminds me that I wondered whether the concept "is_approved_of" should 
live only in substance_intake or whether it makes sense to have a default in

        consumable_substance

which can be overridden at the patient level?

-- Jim