Sexual health prescribing is a national system. Drug entries in the dictionary are free text protocols. They are not coded using standard nomenclature such as dm+d and SNOMED-CT coding. I set out to change this by retrospectively coding antimicrobials for easier analysis as sexual health services are the largest “outpatient” users of antimicrobials. This proof of concept is underway but systems change is complex and a large part of the learning for me in this work is how to progress a digital project. I have established procedures for coding of drugs iteratively going forward for easier analysis across Scotland.
