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The Medications option displays a history of medication orders for a given patient. You can view the original order from the physician for each medicine including its name, dosage, schedule, and possible conditions of administration to the patient such as PRN, conditionals and alternating IVs. If your source medication system tracks Medication Administration Record (MAR) information, the Physician Portal can also display MAR information for each medication order.
For sites with Commure Pro CPOE™ enabled, the appearance of the Medication Orders window is configured to mirror the Orders display window as it appears when the Medication Order Type is selected.
The CPOE Medications setting is used to ensure that the Medications Orders window matches the Orders window view as it appears when the Medication Order Type is selected. If the Medications setting is enabled and CPOE Medications is disabled, the previous Medication Orders window is displayed in the patient data display area. To view a patient’s medication orders, follow these steps:
  1. Select a patient on the Patient List tab, or click on the Details icon from another option.
  2. Select the amount of information you wish to display by clicking the Timeframe drop-down list.
    For sites with Commure Pro CPOE™ enabled, the timeframe can be expanded up to 5 years in the past.
  3. Click on Medications from the display list. The patient data display area shows the Medication Orders window. It includes the medication name, the dose, and the sig (route and frequency), and the dates the order should start and stop. If MAR data is available, it also displays the last date and administration status of the medication. For sites with Commure Pro CPOE™ enabled, the patient data display area also includes PRN, status, therapeutic class, and who ordered the medication. Discontinued orders, or any orders with a stop date/time earlier than the current date/time, are displayed with a line struck through the text of the name.
    A medication with zero dosage displays a blank dosage field in the Medication Orders window. To view further information, including dosage instructions, click on the medication to open the Medication Detail pane.
    • You may change the order in which the medications are sorted, by clicking on a column heading. For example, clicking the Medication heading would sort the medications alphabetically by name.
    For non-CPOE sites, when sorting medications based on Status, the sort order is defined by an institution-level setting. Clicking the Status heading sorts the medications in an order that is defined by the following setting:
    Admin - Institution - Medications - Medication Status Sort Order
    • Click Graph n the upper right corner of the summary window to graph any medication against multiple clinical items (see Multi-Graphing Clinical Data).
    • (CPOE-sites only) You may filter the list of medications by class of medication. To do so, click the Drug Class drop-down filter located in the upper-right corner of the Medication Orders window. You may also filter the list of medications by type. To do so, select the Show drop-down located in the upper-right corner of the Medication Orders window, and then select the medication type from the list to apply the filter to the list of medications.
    • (Non-CPOE sites only) You may filter the list of medications, by type or types of medication. To do so, click the Filter button located in the upper right corner of the Medication Orders window.
    Select an item, or a combination of items, from the list to view only those types in the Medication Orders window. You can filter the list of medications to display only those in which you are interested. Each of the predefined filters is described below. Please note that discontinued medication orders can appear in any of the filters below, except the Active and On Hold filters.
    • All: A comprehensive list of all medication orders, including active, future, and discontinued orders.
    When All is selected as the filter, the Exclude Future Orders checkbox appears in the title bar of the summary pane. Check the box to exclude all future medication orders from the list of all medication orders. Future medications are medication orders that have a start date in the future.
    • Active: Medication orders that are currently being administered. This includes all medications that do not have an end date, or that have an end date later than the current date and time.
    When Active is selected as the filter, the Exclude Future Orders checkbox appears in the title bar of the summary pane. Check the box to exclude all future medication orders from the list of active medication orders. Future medications are medication orders that have a start date in the future.
    • Scheduled: Medication orders that are to be administered on a regular schedule (i.e., medications other than PRN). This includes both active and future Scheduled medications.
    • On Hold: Medication orders that are being withheld temporarily or are not being administered, based on the deactivation and reactivation dates that have been specified on the order. If your source system is Cerner®, this filter shows medications with a Suspended or On-Hold status.
    • PRN: Medication orders that are to be given on an as needed basis, such as for pain. This includes both active and future PRN medications).
    • Conditional: Medication orders in which some aspect of the order is based on a piece of clinical data or a clinical judgment. For example, the dosage for an insulin order might be based on the patient’s current blood glucose level. This includes both active and future Conditional medications).
    • Alternate: Medication orders where two medications, or differing doses of the same medication, are given sequentially. This includes both active and future Alternate medications).
    • IV: Medication orders where the route is intravenous or contains the letters IV, such as IV or IVPB. This includes both active and future IV medications).
    • Discontinued, or Status: D/C, or Status: Discontinued : Depending on your source medication ordering system, any of these three filter names may be used to signify medication orders that are no longer being actively administered.
    • Unverified: Depending on your source medication ordering system, the Unverified filter may be available. This filter displays medications that are not flagged as having been verified in the back-end system.
    The header row keeps track of the total number of medications for the patient and how many are displayed when a filter is used. For example, if All is chosen, you may see (7 of 7) displayed which means that all seven medications orders are displayed; however if you chose a different filter, you may see (2 of 7) which means only two of the seven medication orders are displayed.
  4. If you would like to see the details of a specific medication order, click on that item in the Summary list. One or two Detail screens open below the Summary list. The first Detail screen (left pane) shows all known information about the medication order. The information shown depends on the type of medication and your source system (many of these fields are available only if your source system is MEDITECH). You might see the SIG, Strength, Rate, Dose Instructions, Admin Criteria, PRN Reason, Special Instructions, On-Hold Comments, Start and End Dates, Hold Date, Resume Date, Date Ordered, Ordered by (ordering physician), Order Status (from your source medication ordering system), Order ID, Notes/Comments, Label Comments, or Pharmacy RX Comments. In addition, you might also see information about linked orders or compound orders. The second Detail screen (right pane) appears only if Medication Administration Record (MAR) information is available. It displays every date and time for each medication administration event, the dose administered, and the person who administered it. It also includes a medication status, if available. The statuses vary depending on your organization’s source HIM system. For example, if a medication was not administered as ordered and this fact was documented, the Status column might contain the words “Not Given” or “Pt Refused.”
    • Some orders may have items listed in a Related Orders section of the left Detail screen. These are linked orders(as indicated by the Linked Medication icon). Linked orders are orders for medications that are related, typically because they are administered together. For example, Meperidine (Demerol) can be ordered for pain, along with Promethazine (Phenergan) to prevent the nausea that is often caused by the Meperidine. Both drugs are commonly administered together after surgery.
    If you see a linked order in the Related Orders section of a detail screen, you can click on it to change the detail screen to display the information about the related medication.
    • A compound order consists of a base medication with one or more additives or diluents that are subsidiary to the base medication. The most common examples of compound orders are found in IV medications. In the Summary list, the row for a compound medication displays as follows: the base medication is listed first, with the additives indented below it. In the Detail screen for the base medication, the additives are also listed under the base medication.
  5. If your organization has implemented a link to one or more on-line drug reference tools, a link appears in the title bar of the medication summary window and/or the medication detail window. This feature can be customized via XML so that specific users, departments, or facilities can each link to different on-line references. When implemented on the summary window (Check Interactions), the Commure Pro system retrieves the patient’s full list of active medications so that you can check for drug interactions. When implemented on the medication detail window (Reference), the system pulls the currently selected medication so that you can look up general usage information for that particular drug. When retrieving medication information for use as the search string, the Commure Pro system uses the appropriate identifiers for the medications, such as the medication name, depending on the requirements of the on-line reference tool. Just click the link to access the on-line drug reference tool. You may be required to enter a username and/or password for the drug reference tool the first time you access it.
  6. (Optional) You may print the Summary or Detail window by clicking Print . For details on printing in the display area, see the text describing Print icon in Understanding the Patient Data Display.