MediSpan

MediSpan
Name	MediSpan
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Healthcare information services
Founded	1970s
Headquarters	Indianapolis, Indiana
Key people	GlaxoSmithKline executives, Wolters Kluwer leadership
Products	Drug databases, clinical decision support
Owner	Wolters Kluwer

MediSpan

MediSpan is a clinical drug information and medication decision-support database used in healthcare settings, hospitals, pharmacies, and health plans. It supplies structured drug data, dosing rules, interaction checking, and drug pricing that integrate with electronic health record systems and pharmacy management platforms. Major stakeholders include health systems, payers, pharmacy chains, and regulatory agencies that rely on its data for patient safety, formulary management, and billing.

Overview

MediSpan provides comprehensive medication data covering prescription drugs, over-the-counter products, biologics, vaccines, and compounded preparations for use across clinical workflows, pharmacy operations, and payer formulary systems. Customers span integrated delivery networks such as Kaiser Permanente, hospital systems like Mayo Clinic, retail chains like CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance, as well as government agencies such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and regulatory authorities. Its offerings address medication reconciliation, computerized physician order entry used by vendors including Epic Systems Corporation and Cerner Corporation, and medication therapy management programs administered by organizations like UnitedHealth Group.

Products and Services

Core products include a normalized drug database, clinical content modules for interactions and contraindications, therapeutic equivalence mappings, and pricing and reimbursement files. These are consumed within clinical decision support tools developed by firms such as Allscripts, McKesson Corporation, and GE Healthcare, and by pharmacy automation vendors like ScriptPro and Omnicell. Additional services include formulary maintenance, managed care drug lists for payers such as Aetna and Cigna, and medication safety analytics used by patient safety organizations and accreditation bodies such as The Joint Commission.

Data Sources and Methodology

MediSpan compiles data from regulatory filings, labeling information from authorities like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, manufacturer submissions from firms such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, and published literature in journals including The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Methodologies combine expert curation from clinical pharmacists and informaticians with algorithmic normalization aligned to standards like RxNorm and coding systems such as National Drug Code and SNOMED CT. Quality assurance processes typically reference evidence synthesis practices used by organizations like Cochrane and clinical guideline developers such as National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Applications and Integration

MediSpan data is embedded in electronic health records, e-prescribing platforms, pharmacy dispensing systems, medication administration records, and clinical analytics solutions used by health IT vendors including NextGen Healthcare and Athenahealth. Use cases include allergy and drug interaction checking during computerized physician order entry, formulary decision support in hospital pharmacies, medication reconciliation in post-acute care facilities like those operated by Kindred Healthcare, and cost-of-care estimations for accountable care organizations such as Partners HealthCare. Integrations are facilitated through interoperability standards and interfaces familiar to vendors involved in health information exchange initiatives like CommonWell Health Alliance.

Regulation and Compliance

Products are designed to support compliance with regulatory and accreditation requirements from agencies and bodies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and The Joint Commission. MediSpan content assists organizations in meeting medication safety goals, reporting obligations under programs administered by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and formulary management expectations relevant to private payers including Blue Cross Blue Shield entities. Data licensing and privacy practices intersect with statutes and frameworks like Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 when integrated with patient-level systems and with procurement standards used by state Medicaid programs.

History and Ownership

Founded in the 1970s as a drug information publisher and data provider, the company evolved alongside developments in pharmacy automation and health IT during the 1980s and 1990s, paralleling advances at institutions and companies such as Mayo Clinic, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and early electronic medical record vendors. Over time it was acquired and consolidated within larger healthcare information enterprises and is presently owned by Wolters Kluwer, aligning it with other subsidiaries and product lines serving clinical decision support and medical publishing, which include collaborations with publishers like Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Category:Health information technology companies Category:Pharmaceutical databases