FDB Announces that New FDB Vela ePrescribing Network is Open to the Veterinary Industry

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Mar 23, 2022, 07:55 ET

Trusted Leader in Human and Pet Drug Knowledge Offers New ePrescribing Opportunities to Veterinary Practice Information Management Systems Developers, and Brings Sought-After Convenience and Cost Optimization to Veterinary Practices and Pet Owners

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- FDB (First Databank, Inc.), the leading provider of drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise decisions, announced today that FDB Vela™ (pronounced "Vee-La"), FDB's new, cloud-native electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) network serving the entire healthcare continuum, will for the first time bring the benefits enjoyed by participants in the human ePrescribing system—namely time savings, cost optimization and user satisfaction—to the veterinary industry.

Electronic prescribing has been successfully used by physicians caring for human patients for the past two decades and has now reached almost universal adoption, but the technology supporting this workflow innovation has been unavailable to the veterinary industry. With FDB Vela, veterinary practices can now easily deploy the same digital processes to automate prescribing for pet patients that other doctors use for human patients. And developers of veterinary practice information systems (PIMS) can readily integrate advanced prescribing capabilities into their workflows in order to expedite the prescribing and fulfillment experience for veterinarians and pet parents. FDB Vela enables veterinary practices to support safe, accurate and efficient prescribing for pets, review costs with pet parents at the point of prescribing and make it less time-consuming for them to obtain their pets' medications.

"We believe it's time for a robust and frictionless electronic prescribing connection accessible to all prescribers and pharmacies, including those that care for our tens of millions of pets across the United States," said FDB President Bob Katter. "Most human prescriptions are currently written and dispensed using FDB's industry-leading drug knowledge and decision support capabilities, and several years ago we developed a new veterinary drug database to support veterinarians in making the best medication decisions for pets. We view the FDB Vela ePrescribing network as a natural extension to these solutions."

FDB Vela makes it possible for developers of veterinary PIMS to connect veterinary practices with participating pharmacies of all types, including major retail pharmacies and veterinary pharmacies, easing fulfillment of pet prescriptions for veterinarians, pet parents and pharmacies. This also opens a new source of prescriptions for many pharmacies and presents PIMS developers with new revenue-generating opportunities.

Lathe Bigler, vice president of clinical network services at FDB and general manager of FDB Vela, said: "The addition of ePrescribing to the veterinary industry is long overdue. One of our goals in developing FDB Vela was to remove barriers to participation that were preventing many stakeholders—including those in the veterinary industry—from realizing the full benefits of ePrescribing. This is why we have opened our network to vital stakeholders, including veterinarians and veterinary practice information systems, for their benefit and that of their pet parents and patients."

FDB Vela enables veterinary PIMS to offer their users functionality to choose optimal medications, answer clients' questions, and direct prescriptions to the most appropriate pharmacies based on their clients' desired convenience or spending goals. With electronic prescribing facilitated by FDB Vela, veterinarians can save pet parents time and improve their ability to adhere to their pets' medication regimens by simplifying prescription fulfillment.

"Pet parents today are looking at more ways to obtain their pets' medications, whether it's picking up a prescription at their local pharmacy or ordering online," said Megan Conrad, BVMS, with Hello Ralphie, a marketplace that connects pet parents with veterinarians for video and chat appointments. "The current prescribing process to local pharmacies, which relies on vet staff speaking with a pharmacist instead of ePrescribing, can make providing pet medications at local pharmacies more burdensome on clinic staff. We appreciate the steps FDB is taking to understand the needs of veterinarians and their clients and to streamline the prescribing and fulfillment process for veterinary medications."

Currently, many veterinarians write paper prescriptions or log into separate online portals to prescribe medications, which may take days or weeks to ship and deliver. These manual processes burden both veterinarians and pet parents. Electronic prescribing with FDB Vela can substantially reduce data-entry time for veterinary practice staff and enable them to spend more time on patient care.

Veterinarians also continue to fill and dispense prescriptions within their practices. With FDB Vela, many veterinary practices can eliminate the expensive, resource-intensive processes they now maintain to dispense medications internally: tracking inventory, adjusting for price fluctuations, disposing of expired medications, and complying with regulations. This can further increase practice productivity and make launching ePrescribing with FDB Vela a cost-effective alternative versus their current prescribing approach.

While ePrescribing may be a new process for veterinary PIMS developers and veterinary practices, FDB makes getting started fast and hassle-free. Participants can easily connect to the FDB Vela network via a series of advanced APIs built on highly scalable and secure Microsoft® Azure technology. For veterinary practices, connecting with FDB Vela will require minimal training and most likely zero capital expenditure.

"We developed FDB Vela to empower innovation," said Bigler. "With FDB Vela's cloud architecture and a collaborative business model, all participants can bring their own creative aspirational ideas for ePrescribing to market without barriers. The network offers veterinary PIMS developers and practices flexibility in designing ePrescribing workflows to optimize their business operations and pet care."

About FDB

FDB (First Databank) creates and delivers the world's most powerful drug knowledge that ignites, inspires, and illuminates critical medication decisions. We collaborate with our partners to help improve patient safety, operational efficiency, and health outcomes. Our drug databases drive healthcare information systems that serve the majority of hospitals, physician practices, pharmacies, payers, and all other areas of healthcare and are used by millions of clinicians, business associates, and patients every day. FDB Vela is a cloud-native electronic prescribing network that enables the seamless flow of critical medication prescription information, benefits verification, and clinical decision support between prescribers, payers, and pharmacies.

To learn more about FDB Vela, please visit https://www.fdbvela.com. For a complete look at FDB's other solutions and services, please visit https://www.fdbhealth.com/, or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

About Hearst Health

The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person's health journey. Care guidance from Hearst Health reaches the majority of people in the U.S. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase and MHK. Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2Gen. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth or LinkedIn @Hearst-Health.