ASHP and Zynchros Ship U.S. Drug DB
Immediate Availability of AHFS-Enhanced NDC-11 Database Targeted to Healthcare IT Vendors and Health Plans
HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, San Diego, CA - 15 February, 2006 - The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and Zynchros, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of their jointly-developed, AHFS-enhanced NDC-11 U.S. Drug Database (USDDB).
The combined database is being licensed to a broad range of healthcare constituents to serve as a critical underpinning of a number of pharmacy applications including formulary management, hospital information systems, hand-held reference tools, electronic medical records and ePrescribing applications.
“The immediate feedback we have received from our technology partners tells us the market is ready for a transactional drug resource with a different and more equitable licensing strategy,” said Carol Wolfe, ASHP Vice President of Publications and Drug Information Systems. “The ASHP/Zynchros US Drug DB provides healthcare application developers with a new and affordable foundation for prescribing-related applications.”
“The first deployment of the AHFS-enhanced US Drug DB was within our Zynchros.com™ application”, said Marc Lilly, CEO of Zynchros. “Our health plan clients are now seamlessly managing their entire formulary development and distribution strategy – and their Medicare Part D compliance programs - based on a drug information resource that provides fair and reasonable licensing and the accuracy modern formulary management requires.”
For licensing information please contact Zynchros, at 1.206.792.410 or Peter Cerretani, ASHP at 1.301.664.8705.
Published by ASHP for more than 40 years, AHFS DI has been a widely respected source of drug information in hospitals. The AHFS family of products provides the most comprehensive source of unbiased and authoritative drug information available to health professionals today. The U.S. Congress and various health care insurance providers have recognized the authority of the AHFS DI suite of products as a source of information on the medically accepted uses of drugs. The only official drug compendium published by a non-commercial entity, AHFS DI has a longstanding policy of editorial independence from the influence of pharmaceutical manufacturers, health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and other third parties. For more information about AHFS DI, visit www.ahfsdruginformation.com.
About Zynchros’ U.S. Drug Database
The U.S. Drug DB is the only NDC-11 coded drug resource specifically engineered to address the needs of health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, claims processors/adjudicators, healthcare technology vendors, medical groups and health-systems. The U.S. Drug DB is designed to deliver the most current database of products that are valid for human prescribing, eliminating obsolete and otherwise irrelevant ingredients, bulk chemicals and drugs. More than 5-years in research, the U.S. Drug DB is maintained by a team of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to ensure data quality and accuracy.
About ASHP
For more than 60 years, ASHP has helped pharmacists who practice in hospitals and health systems improve medication use and enhance patient safety. The Society's 30,000 members include pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who practice in inpatient, outpatient, home-care, and long-term-care settings, as well as pharmacy students. For more information about the wide array of ASHP activities and the many ways in which pharmacists help people make the best use of medicines, visit ASHP's Web site, www.ashp.org, the AHFS Web
ABOUT ZYNCHROS, INC. Founded in 2000, privately-held Zynchros, Inc. (formerly Script IQ, Inc.) delivers technology-based solutions that transform the economics of drug-based wellness, improving compliance and agility of health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. The Zynchros.com on-demand platform provides the workflow processes necessary to initiate pharmacy quality management, improving responsiveness, control and efficiency by synchronizing all of the participants in pharmacy benefits, from P&T to the point of care. To learn more about how Zynchros is interconnecting the world of pharmacy benefits visit www.zynchros.com or call 1-866-996-2476.
For more information contact:
ASHP
Ellen Wilcox
(301) 664-8621
ewilcox@ashp.org
ZYNCHROS, INC.
Terry Christiani
206.792.4106
terry.christiani@zynchros.com