VA National Clozapine Registry
type: Dataset
description: The VA National Clozapine Registry tracks the health and demographics of patients who have been prescribed clozapine by the VA. Clozapine, or the brand name Clozaril, is a drug used to treat the most serious cases of schizophrenia. Unfortunately, clozapine may also affect portions of the blood, lowering the body's resistance to infection and sometimes creating life-threatening circumstances. Realizing the severity of the problem, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established guidelines for analysis of White Blood Cells and Neutrophils and set strict minimum limits. The FDA also mandated that any manufacturer of clozapine must maintain a Clozapine Registry. These registries are to track the location and the health of clozapine patients and to ensure 'weekly White Blood Cell testing prior to delivery of the next week's supply of medication'. To date, the clozapine manufacturer registries have been unable to develop sufficient controls to meet these requirements, especially the ability to prevent dispensing clozapine when blood results are abnormal. However, because of the unique structure of Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, the Veterans Health Administration obtained permission from the FDA and clozapine manufacturers to use its in-place computer network to gather and evaluate weekly patient information, then export this data to manufacturer clozapine registries. The VA assigned functional administration of this effort to the National Clozapine Coordinating Center (NCCC) located in Dallas, Texas. Weekly data on each VA clozapine patient is processed at two locations. Facility Level --When a clozapine prescription is written, a computer program in each facility's internal computer system retrieves white blood cell count, neutrophil count, and clozapine dose and evaluates the information according to FDA guidelines. If an adverse blood condition is found, the computer may warn to trigger a physician reevaluation, or lock out entirely…
issued: 2017-07-26
language: {en-US}
modified: 2020-12-01
contact point: Organization
  fn: VHA Open Data
keyword: amerigeo
keyword: amerigeoss
keyword: ckan
keyword: clozapine
keyword: clozaril
keyword: drug
keyword: fda
keyword: geo
keyword: geoss
keyword: infection
keyword: medication
keyword: national
keyword: neutrophils
keyword: north-america
keyword: patient
keyword: registry
keyword: united-states
keyword: va
keyword: veteran
theme: "and Operational Data"}
theme: {"Basic Statistics"
theme: Use

US Migrating
type: Agent