Medication management with direct lookup from medicin.dk

One of the questions we get most often when we show Validi to a clinic is this: "Do I still need medicin.dk open in another tab?" The answer is no. We have built the lookup directly into the medication module, so you don't have to juggle four tabs during an evening round with 12 residents.

It sounds small. But it's exactly the kind of small thing that costs minutes — and sometimes errors — on a busy shift.

The rest of the medication module is built in the same spirit: make the most safety-critical task of the day as friction-free as possible, without compromising traceability afterwards. In this post we walk through how it works, what you get out of it, and what we have deliberately chosen not to build.

(medicin.dk is the Danish national pharmaceutical database, the standard reference for medication information used by Danish health-care staff.)

Lookup in medicin.dk without leaving the journal system

When a new prescription is to be added, you search medicin.dk's database directly from Validi. You get the product name, dosage, active substances and an image of the tablet right in the prescription screen.

The tablet image is a small thing with a big effect. Many medication errors happen because two products look alike, or because a locum has to dispense something she doesn't know. When the image sits next to the dosage, she can compare it with the actual blister pack before giving it.

Medication cards instead of checkboxes

The old way of showing the day's medication rounds was a long list with check marks. Functional, but unreadable under time pressure.

We replaced it with proper medication cards: product name, dose, time, image. Each individual administration becomes a small block that you click when you have given the medication. The staff member on duty can open her round and see the next five doses without scrolling.

Status that can be read in dim light (and by colour-blind users)

We previously had the classic red and green dots. That worked fine until we got feedback from a social and health care assistant with red-green colour blindness who couldn't tell the statuses apart.

Now each status is marked with colour, icon and text:

• ✓ OK (green)
• ○ Next (yellow)
• ! Late (red)

It's a small design detail, but it means the night shift doesn't have to lean in towards the screen to check if something is overdue.

PRN medication with history, not just a button

PRN medication ("as needed", pro re nata) is the part of medication management where patterns over time matter more than the individual administration. If a resident suddenly receives PRN painkillers three times as often as the month before, that needs to come up at the next clinical conversation.

Validi records every PRN administration with time, dose and dispensing staff member. When the therapist writes the monthly status, she can pull an overview of PRN use and see the trend as a simple table.

We deliberately do not build automatic alerts or flags on PRN patterns. It has been a small internal debate, but we have landed on this: it should be the clinical judgement, not the system, that decides when something is concerning.

What you can pull out of the system

Documentation is worthless if it only lives inside the record. Validi has two concrete export options for medication data:

Per-resident usage overview. Doses per month, PRN administrations per month. Exported as CSV or PDF for status reports and regulatory inspection.

Audit log. Every creation, edit and administration with name, time and action. Exported for inspection or internal quality assurance.

We regularly get asked whether we will build automatic monthly reports with colour codes and alert levels. So far the answer is no — our experience is that this kind of report quickly becomes noise for staff, and they risk no longer reading it.

What we have deliberately chosen not to build

A few things we get asked about but have kept outside the product, at least for now:

• AI that prescribes medication: no. The AI helps draft status reports based on medication history, but doesn't suggest prescriptions. That is a clinical boundary we don't want to move.
• Pill recognition via camera: sounds clever, but image quality on a work phone is rarely good enough to be safe. We're waiting for the technology to mature.
• Full FMK integration: we support export and can receive imports. Full two-way integration with the Danish Shared Medication Record (FMK) is on the roadmap, but not delivered yet.

GDPR and medication data

Medication data is classified as particularly sensitive health information under GDPR. In practice that means:

• all medication data is encrypted in the database
• access is role-based, so a support worker doesn't necessarily see the same things a nurse does
• hosting in Europe, data-processor agreement with you as data controller
• audit-logged access, including reads of particularly sensitive fields

If a resident asks for access to their health data, you can pull a standard GDPR data extract with the medication history in a readable format.

How to get started

If you are considering moving medication management into Validi, the order is usually:

1. Enable the medication module under clinic settings
2. Enter existing prescriptions (import from the old system or manually)
3. Set up dosing schedules — Validi generates the day's administrations from them
4. Train staff in an afternoon, it usually takes half an hour per staff member
5. Pick a rhythm for audit-log exports, we recommend monthly

To see it with a resident from your own clinic, book a demo. We'd rather show it with your actual usage pattern than a generic demo script.

FAQ

Does Validi connect to medicin.dk's database?

Yes, we pull product information directly from medicin.dk when you search. It isn't a copy we update manually — it's the current data from medicin.dk's official source.

Can we see who has administered what?

Yes. Every administration is stamped with the staff member's name, time and dose. The same goes for PRN. The log is part of the audit trail and can be exported for inspection.

What happens if an administration is missed?

It shows as late (red marker, text and icon) at the time it should have been given. It doesn't disappear automatically — it stays in the list until someone has dealt with it, either by administering it with a note or by recording why it wasn't given.

Can a locum without special training handle a medication round?

The administration itself is easy to follow, because the cards show product name, image, dose and time. But the system doesn't replace the clinical delegation — the locum still needs the necessary qualifications in place.

Does the medication follow the resident on transfer to another department?

Yes, if it's within the same clinic. The resident's medication history is tied to their Civil Registration Number, not to the department.

Do you support FMK?

We support export and can accept imports. Full two-way integration with the Danish Shared Medication Record (FMK) is on the roadmap, but not delivered yet.