Victorian hospitals go live with AMT
Thurs 9 Sept: The Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) made its debut in a live clinical environment in Victoria, last month. This national system for identifying and naming medicines is being used by the Victorian Department of Health to support outpatient and discharge prescribing through the Department’s HealthSMART Clinical System.
AMT is a system of standardised naming conventions and a terminology structure that describes and allows consistent and accurate identification of medications on the market. The terminology is designed for use by medication management computer systems, in both primary and secondary healthcare, and has been incorporated into the latest version of Cerner's Millennium application, at Box Hill Hospital, part of the Eastern Health zone in outer Melbourne. The software uses terms from AMT as the basis of search and selection for medication items to create an electronic record and a printed prescription.
NEHTA’s AMT team has been working closely with Victorian Department of Health, software developer Cerner Corporation and other agencies to help develop the system.
AMT is vital in the quest to improve clinical safety and quality associated with the use of medicines. This should assist in reducing prescribing errors; ensuring continuity of care for patients moving between healthcare settings and providers; and making it easier to identify product ingredients to avoid drug allergies or adverse interactions between drugs.
Further implementations are planned in other Victorian hospitals with the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital scheduled to go live in August and other institutions expected to follow next year with the release of additional functionality to support inpatient medication management.
AMT is constantly evolving with version 2.14, released at the end of August, is available to all SNOMED CT license holders. For more information check the website or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it