Client Problem

The client engaged SMS to improve their processes for creating the restrictions wording for the prescription of medicines in Australia. Vital to this task was to ensure that the text could be easily coded, stored and distributed for consumption by multiple audiences – something the client believed was not currently possible with their “as-is” processes. This was because the existing processes were unstructured, largely undocumented, and produced highly complex, inconsistent pseudo-legal text that largely reflected the unique style of the author and the cultural idiosyncrasies of the business rather than the end-user medical practitioner’s need for the content to inform prescribing of medicines

SMS Approach

SMS used Semantic Analysis to investigate content. Unlike traditional analysis methodologies, this innovative approach allowed SMS to identify the structural elements common to the restrictions text without needing to analyse its’ inherent meaning. This approach highlighted the patterns and structure common to all of the restrictions texts as well as the business practices that produced it.

SMS used these outcomes to create a taxonomic framework – a business process to guide the authors of the medical restrictions by separating content into the distinct categories of information needed to convey the intention of the restrictions. This was achieved without requiring modification to the underlying business process. SMS employed the user-centred Garrett Methodology to engage the business and develop a prototype for a tool that would facilitate the creation of content, and the codification of the discrete content elements, so that they could be stored by supporting business systems and published online for immediate reuse by medical practitioner’s prescribing software.

Recommendation

• Adopt the taxonomic framework to improve the quality of the restrictions content;
• Adopt the prototype to inform the creation of a tool for creation of the restrictions content;
• Integrate the tool with its other supporting business systems that publish medicines information; and
• Publish the restrictions online in a way that will allow end-users to immediately make use of the information in medical practitioner’s prescribing software

Outcome

SMS was able to provide the client with a means by which it could codify its medicines restriction content and clarify its meaning for the contents’ end-users without adversely impacting on content authors and the existing business processes.

Ultimately, SMS’s recommendations will enable the client to streamline the online publishing of restrictions text and make information more quickly available to its end-users like medical practitioners