Lippincott's Nursing Advisor Updated with Pill Identifier and Drug Interactions Guide

AMBLER, Pa., Jan. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, today announced that it has added new features including a Drug Identifier and a Drug Interactions Guide to Lippincott's Nursing Advisor, one of the leading online clinical decision-support solutions used by nurses in hospitals and other healthcare institutions. 

The new Drug Identifier covers thousands of drugs and contains more than 5,000 color images, organized by multiple descriptive attributes, to enable fast, accurate identification of patients' unlabeled medications. The update also adds a Drug Interactions Guide, which provides a fast and convenient way to look up interactions information for a single drug or between two or more specified drugs. Nurses can use it to view known interactions and to investigate interactions between drugs in specified contexts, such as patients with known drug allergies or with specific diseases or symptoms.

"Both of these new features further strengthen Lippincott's Nursing Advisor's focus on patient safety," said Judith McCann, MSN, RN, Chief Nurse, Professional & Education, Wolters Kluwer Health. "By embedding them right into the core of the product, we make it fast and easy for nurses and other practitioners to obtain the patient information they need to provide optimal care."

The new Lippincott's Nursing Advisor Drug Identifier allows a clinician to enter any combination of pill identification criteria including imprint code, color, dose form, score and shape. In response, the program provides the matching drug or drugs along with detailed attribute information and a thumbnail picture of the pill. Similarly, the Drug Interactions Guide allows the clinician to enter multiple drugs, plus patient drug allergies, diseases and symptoms, gender, age, pregnancy and smoking status in any combination. The program returns a colored symbol next to the drug name that indicates the severity level of drug reactions—from "severe or life threatening" to "may cause minor effects."

Lippincott's Nursing Advisor includes 563 adult and pediatric individual disease entries and a total of more than 3,000 collective entries of critical, evidence-based information spanning diseases, treatments, diagnostic tests, drugs, signs & symptoms, nursing care plans and patient education.  Using the system's proprietary synoptic search, the product delivers the appropriate entry within seconds of a nurse's inquiry. When a nurse requires further reference, access to 27 nursing-related eBooks is now available directly from the product.

Written by nurses for nurses, Lippincott's Nursing Advisor is the leading nurse-centric resource designed for online and mobile point-of-care environments. In use in hospitals and healthcare institutions worldwide, the product is accessible from any Internet-enabled device including PCs and mobile devices such as iPad® and Android™ tablets. Lippincott's Nursing Advisor is part of Lippincott's Nursing Solutions, a series of evidence-based nursing products designed to improve patient outcomes, enhance nurse competency, standardize care and promote clinical excellence.

Both of these Lippincott's Nursing Advisor enhancements are available immediately and are included in the base subscription price to hospitals and other healthcare facilities. To learn more or to purchase, visit www.LippincottSolutions.com, or call 800-326-1685.

About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.

LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2011 annual revenues of €3.4 billion ($4.7 billion).

SOURCE Wolters Kluwer Health