Patient allergies to medication excipients identification and prevention

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Salma Al-Khani
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Joined: 02/04/2009 - 00:10
Patient allergies to medication excipients identification and prevention

Dear All:
I would like to enquire your process to identify and prevent patient allergies to medication excipients.
We had one patient who has a documented allergy to peanut and sesame oil. She was prescribed a medication suppository that contains a peanut oil.
This was not discovered by the patient's physician nor pharmacist, but it was discovered by the patient her self while reading about the medication in our patient education website.

Our challenge is to our knowledge our HIS (ICIS) does not include excipients in the medication description, which means that the system can not identify the allergy and alert both physician and pharmacist. In addition it is not very applicable to ask our pharmacist to know all the medication excipients that include in some occasions preservative and link it to the patient allergies. or check it every time they dispense medication to a patient with a known food or other non-medication substances allergies.

Highly appreciate your feedback and recommendation in this matter.

Thank you

Salma