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AGES and Pharos – The age of IT lighthouses

Arne Gülzau

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Perhaps no one is interested in how we at virtual7 are shaping the world for the better, even beyond national borders. I’ll tell you anyway. And I’ll start with a truism: healthy eating is the key to a long life!

Grapefruit of Death

Well, at least one of the many things you need to become over 40. After all, there are also friends and joy, optimism, exercise, chocolate and wine – depending on who you ask for a good recipe for reaching old age (over 40). But everyone agrees that it depends on what you eat and in what quantities. Too few vitamins make you ill. But too many vitamins do too. Grapefruit is healthy, but it contains substances known as furanocoumarins, which compete with numerous drugs in the body. This means that “ingesting” grapefruit juice increases the concentration of the active ingredient in certain medications, which can of course lead to an overdose. This applies, for example, to cholesterol-lowering drugs, blood pressure medication, some cancer drugs and also drugs that suppress the immune system. The list is long.

AGES

To avoid poisoning yourself with your favorite fruit, you need to know what side effects and interactions can occur if you take a certain medicine. And in our neighboring country Austria, the Agency for Health and Food Safety GmbH (AGES) is responsible for this when it comes to drug safety. It not only looks after healthy cows and clean drinking water, but also ensures that no one becomes an involuntary cocktail mixer of death due to invisible interactions. This agency has taken up the cause of supporting the Austrian federal government when it comes to issues of public health, animal health, food safety, drug safety and food security. It does this independently of any party affiliation and with scientific expertise in order to achieve the best benefit for all Austrians. Numerous projects with beautiful names are working on “averting and containing possible risks for humans, animals and plants and thus ensuring greater safety for consumers in Austria” (cf. https://www. ages.at/ages/ueber-uns).

Acronyms & Apronyms

There are relatively meaningless acronyms to marvel at such as ADAPT, KNODIV, DURDU, SONIA or ESKLIEB, but also cool titles like DETECTIVE, MOBILISE and SPITFIRE. But names are smoke and mirrors and only the content should really matter, right? With this in mind, we turn our attention to the beautiful project with the illustrious name UNICOM (Up-scaling the global univocal identification of medicines), which virtual7 is working hard to implement. The aim of this project is to drive forward the digitalization of the healthcare sector and, in this case, to improve patient safety.
And because the numerous acronyms are not enough, I’ll throw a few more at you. The IT department of AGES has developed its own system – PHAROS (PHARmaceutical Organization System) – to support the individual departments in the core business of the customer’s medical market supervision. Named after the island on which the lighthouse of Alexandria stood, PHAROS is, so to speak, the wonder of the world of Austrian healthcare IT. 😊

The added value

But seriously. Digitization in the (Austrian) healthcare system enables improved availability of information both nationally and internationally. The aim is to develop and implement uniform conceptual and semantic standards in order to provide high-quality data on all medicines available on national or European markets. The desired added value can only be fully exploited if seamless data exchange between different systems, regions, countries and use cases is guaranteed. There is considerable added value for patients and healthcare professionals if this data exchange functions smoothly. Practically implemented in UNICOM, this means that possible overdoses with grapefruit and medicines cannot occur if the lack of legibility of prescriptions or the lack of detailed, structured and coded drug information is eliminated and the IDMP standards (IDentification of Medicinal Products) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are implemented. Phew, difficult sentence, it could also be included in the package leaflet. 😉

No Risk – All the Fun

The work on this project includes the further development, testing, implementation and dissemination of these standards. As part of the collaboration, the experts from the virtual7 team are supporting the client’s Scrum teams with new and further development specific to the specialist area in order to meet the requirements of the European Medicine Agency (EMA) for the Austrian healthcare market. The work comprises various steps: First, the requirements from the European medicine market supervisory authority are analyzed. This is followed by a detailed examination of the existing data from the PHAROS and UNICOM systems. On this basis, the requirements are implemented in the PHAROS core system. In addition, workflows and processes are adapted to the new, modified data models. Finally, data synchronization between the National Competent Authority (NCA) and the EMA will be ensured.
And yes, that’s a lot of abbreviations. But once you’ve got to grips with them, it all becomes clear: we make sure that the right dose of grapefruit juice doesn’t become a risk. Cheers – to safety in the healthcare sector! 🍊