National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus) Multiple Access Points (MAPS) Enhanced Therapeutic Classification (ETC) System First DataBank Medical Lexicon (FML) Formulist

For health plans and insurers, containing costs while improving the quality of care is a never-ending battle. Because drug therapy is at the heart of so much medical care, key weapons in the battle include drug utilization review (DUR) to support claims-adjudication systems, medication-billing audits, and drug-formulary management.

All of these functions demand a comprehensive and up-to-date drug database, one that is organized to deliver reliable decision support to a wide range of users. That's why so many health plans and insurers rely on First DataBank. For over 25 years, our pioneering National Drug Data File Plus (NDDF Plus) has been the most respected and widely used drug data base in the healthcare industry.

First DataBank's advantages for drug utilization review begin with the fact that health plans and insurers will be drawing on the same information as the tens of thousands of medical professionals who use NDDF Plus in real time to ensure prescribed drug therapies are safe for their patients.

Moreover, you can draw on that information within your normal workflow, because our Multiple Access Points use industry-standard vocabulary practices that enable both clinicians and payers to zero in on First DataBank drug information quickly and accurately. In addition, you can quickly check for drug-drug, drug-allergy, and duplicate therapy interactions, as well as an array of drug dosing-content options that can reduce dose-related medication errors in the workflow. And our drug databases for drug indications, contraindications, precautions and side effects further enhance DUR for disease-treatment decision support.

For retrospective DUR, which is essential to monitoring patient compliance, MAPs drug identifiers remain consistent even as coding processes for claims and procedures change. Similarly, the consistency of our identifiers helps organizations that are refining practice guidelines to track drug-therapy incidents using data-mining techniques.

Drug utilization review enabled by First DataBank has numerous cost-containment advantages as well, since avoiding such things as duplicate therapies and over- or under-prescribing reduces the costs associated with treating patients who could experience adverse drug events.

Beyond that, health plans and insurers use First DataBank to help ensure prescribers follow carefully devised formularies, which encourage lower-priced, clinically equivalent alternatives. User-friendly access to multiple logical therapeutic classification systems; the breadth and depth of our drug vocabulary; and detailed sets of data elements for supporting informed decisions allow you to quickly research current pricing; easily search for the lowest-cost drug within a given therapeutic class; and compare brand name with generic drugs. And because our drug databases are so widely used—and they offer comprehensive and up-to-date drug content integrated with clinical decision-support modules—First DataBank enables more efficient tracing and auditing of drug transactions.

Finally, our databases and formulary management tools help you save significant costs, by:

In short, by drawing on the following components, First DataBank sets the standard for providing user-centric drug information for health plans and insurers.

NDDF Plus is the leader in supplying comprehensive coverage of descriptive, pricing and clinical information on drugs. It encompasses medications approved by the FDA, plus commonly used over-the-counter drugs and information on herbals, nutraceuticals, dietary supplements, and medical devices.

Comprehensive and up-to-date are the key concepts here, since drug content is dynamic and notoriously complex to maintain. It's essential, therefore, that the drug database behind health plans' and insurers' applications be the most reliable in the industry. NDDF Plus is that database. It also offers you the most efficient ways of navigating to exactly the information you need for the task at hand, allowing for more informed decision-making.

MAPs are the flexible, user-centric drug identifiers that enable all users to zero in on First DataBank drug information quickly and efficiently within their normal workflow. MAPs incorporate our proprietary Enhanced Therapeutic Classification (ETC) system and First DataBank Medical Lexicon (FML). ETC allows you to quickly find products within therapeutic classes and to revise clinical information at as general or specific a level as necessary. FML is a specialized medical vocabulary relating drug products to various diagnoses and health-related concepts in our disease decision-support and dosing modules.

Our clinical modules for drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-disease, duplicate therapy interactions and other clinical decision-support offer exceptionally flexible ways for you to create applications that categorize and display potentially harmful interactions. First DataBank's dedicated clinical staff separates the interactions into highly granular categories, and then carefully and consistently creates subsets of the most clinically relevant drug interactions. This reduces "noise" that less relevant interactions create, and eliminates the need to spend undue time researching.

Formulist software provides unprecedented pricing analysis capabilities through a user-friendly interface that draws on the over 100,000 drug and health products in NDDF Plus, as well as the power of our ETC system. Compatible with virtually all industry IT standards, Formulist takes advantage of the latest software advances.