eWeek Link The FDA will start requiring standards for certain electronic labels, starting in June of this year.... The FDA wants us to use standards to communicate, such as always calling a “heart attack” a Myocardial Infarction, and so on. This will apply to drug names and nomenclature as well. This goes in line with recent legislation to ensure standard submission formats for prescription drug format. Standards can always be viewed as beneficial to the whole, but they bring chaos initially.eWeek Link

The FDA will start requiring standards for certain electronic labels, starting in June of this year. The goals are to enhance communication of information between separate healthcare entities. Say you are at Mayo and need to get electronic information to MD Anderson. Currently things are reduced to paper, sent, then re-entered at the new site. This takes time and could impact timely patient care. The FDA wants us to use standards to communicate, such as always calling a “heart attack” a Myocardial Infarction, and so on. This will apply to drug names and nomenclature as well. This goes in line with recent legislation to ensure standard submission formats for prescription drug format. Standards can always be viewed as beneficial to the whole, but they bring chaos initially. I would like to see these standards well designed. What do you think?