The cross-reference drug allergy system at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital has prevented 2,500 patients from being prescribed drugs to which they are allergic since its promulgation in August last year.
The system, developed by the hospital’s pharmacy and information technology departments, allows users to cross-reference medical histories from the National Health Insurance’s servers for up to three months, Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄), director of the pharmacy department, said on Thursday.
The system allows doctors to look up medication, allergy and prescription histories, Liu said.
Many patients are allergic to common drugs, such as sultamicillin, amoxicillin and diclofenac, so the system could prevent doctors from prescribing such medications if a patient is allergic, Liu said.
Everyone has different medical allergies, so just because a person does not have other types of allergies does not mean they are not allergic to certain medications, Liu added.
Citing the example of a 50-year-old female patient surnamed Chen (陳), Liu said the system alerted her physician to her severe allergy to cephalexin, which allowed the doctor to avoid similar drugs.
Allergic reactions to medication range from rashes to shock, cardiac arrest or even death, hospital pharmacist Liao Chieh-yu (廖婕羽) said.
Meanwhile, the hospital has also been using a system to screen for medication that could cause hemorrhages during surgery, Liu said.
The system is also connected to the national servers and tells physicians what anti-coagulant a patient is on, such as warfarin or rivaroxaban: two medications often used for myocardial infarction and stroke patients.
The system would allow the hospital to notify patients who are about to go into surgery five to seven days beforehand to stop taking the medication to lower their chances of having a hemorrhage during surgery, Liu said.
Both systems are supported by the National Health Insurance Bureau, Liu said, adding that he hopes they would be used by hospitals and clinics nationwide.
The system is reliant on patients authorizing doctors to look at their private medical information, Liu said, adding that 10 percent to 20 percent of patients refuse to grant access.
“We urge patients to consider that such information is only used for prescription purposes and their privacy will not be breached,” Liu said, adding that otherwise, patients should remember to which medications they are allergic.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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