Comments on: Comments and discussion regarding allergy post

By: Pauline Sweetman

Pauline Sweetman — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:16:25 +0000

I use the iPhone 3GS, which I have had for a few months. It has some limitations and some quirks but it is much better than any other phone that I have used.

I’m happy for you to leave your transcript up, it all adds to the global info available.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:48:31 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by jfahrni: RT @omowizard: @psweetman: Thanks for the great discussion. I couldn’t get my thoughts into 140 chars, so I posted this http://br.st/126...

By: Jerry Fahrni

Jerry Fahrni — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:08:30 +0000

Yes it is a shame that we are so far apart, but the fact that I can discuss the issue with two people half way across the world is still amazing. This internet thing is quite amazing. I think I’ll keep it around for a while. Based on your incredible ability to write with your phone, it’s obvious that I need to work on my texting skills. ;-)

BTW, what phone do you use?

By: Tweets that mention Jerry Fahrni » Comments and discussion regarding allergy post -- Topsy.com

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:33:04 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jerry Fahrni, Heather. Heather said: RT @JFahrni: Comments and discussion regarding allergy post http://ff.im/-b3cvc < Watch out where your tweets could end up!! LOL [...]

By: Pauline Sweetman

Pauline Sweetman — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:31:48 +0000

Jerry,
thanks for posting this. It is a pity that we all live so far apart. @omowizard is in Australia and I am in the Uk, so our time zones barely overlap at morning and night. (note spelling of omowizard).
It’s a great frustration to me that allergies and intolerances are handled so badly in systems. A new system that I recently came across has category of ‘no known allergies’ in its allergy tables so if you recorded the patient had ‘nka’ a flag would be set to show the patient had an allergy!

We wanted to use the word sensitivity to describe unclassified reactions until someone pointed out that ‘sensivity to penicillins’ looks like a lab result not an allergy.

The first step is to ensure that every patient has their allergies recorded at their point of first contact, and rechecked at every subsequent encounter.
It has to be correct (as far as possible) as incorrect recording may deprive the patient of the best treatment on a future occasion.
It has to be descriptive, so that a judgement of risk may be made should the patient need to be given the allergen.
It needs to be coded, not free text. Systems should enable pharmacists to check for freetext allergies and investigate, correcting and coding them.

I could go on but It is 00.23 here and have taken enough of your column inches. Interesting discussion, thanks, maybe we’ll continue later.

Best regards

@psweetman