04 Drug Information Center & Drug Information Service

Drug Information Center
&
Drug Information Service
Abdullah Al-Dahbali, MPharm, PhD
Drug Information Centre (DIC)
• A professional agency (usually in a hospital) dedicated to
the collation & transfer of drug-related knowledge
– the drug-related knowledge is called drug information
• The information has to be of good quality & up-to-date
– quality information are unbiased, scientific & evidence-based
– in a timely way
– in order to promote effective, safe & rational use of drugs
• Transferring knowledge in this way should improve the knowledge, the
attitude & the behavior of stake holders of the drug use process (who
are these stake holders?!! )
• Operationally, DIC strives to
1) serve as an agency for all activities related to selection,
procurement, distribution & utilization (use) of drugs
2) to coordinate a program of dissemination of drug information
to the health care professionals, the general consumers &
patient, and
3) support decisions towards safe, appropriate, and rational drug
use 2
Scope of Activities of DIC
Administrative Services
DIC
Research Education
3
Examples of Activities of DIC
1) Answering inquiries related to drugs
2) Guiding the decisions of Pharmacy & Therapeutics
Committee in the hospital
a) Designing drug use policies (e.g. who can/can’t prescribe a
specific drug.)
b) Hospital formulary development & maintenance (adding or
deleting drugs to & from the formulary)
• A formulary contains drugs (& their prescribing information) that should
be available in the hospital
3) Producing publications (newsletters & bulletins)
4) Conducting studies on drug utilization
5) Coordination of reporting programs (such as adverse
drug reaction reporting)
6) Conducting training programs on these activities 4
Drug Information Service
• DIC service that purposefully answering inquiries related to drugs
– This service should be provided by a drug expert, or so called drug
information specialist (Who?!)
– Providing this service needs skills in addition to knowledge
• inquiry answering should be systematic (why?)
– Because the first question asked by the inquirer is not necessarily the
whole picture, and may not represent the question that should be
answered
• Especially if the inquirer is from the lay people
– The systematic approach helps formulating a more useful answer
• It is the task of the inquiry receiver to facilitate a process for revealing the
real question in the inquiry (how?!)
– By opening a conversation with the inquirer
• By asking questions to the inquirer
– otherwise, valuable information can be lost
5
The 7-Step Systematic Approach (Way) for
Answering a DI inquiry (modified by Host & Kirkwood) See Next Slide.
1) Obtain demographics of inquirer (full name, telephone number, email

address, location, profession) as well as the medium to communicate the
answer (e.g, telephone, email, postage, …….)
2) Obtain background information about the inquiry
– purpose of the request: is it patient-specific or is it for knowledge?
• If it is patient-specific, ask about patient-specific data (age, diseases,
drugs,..etc.)
• Ask about the spelling of disease , symptoms & drug names
– What does the inquirer already know? From where this knowledge?
3) Determine & categorize the ultimate (real) question
– The most critical step because it determines the searching strategy (step 4
below) for answering (i.e. which information source to search?)
– Categories include Adverse effects, Identification, Availability,
Pharmacokinetics, Compatibility/Stability, Pharmacology, Compounding,
Poisoning/Toxicology, Dosing, Administration, Pregnancy/Lactation, Drug6
interaction, Therapeutic use, Herbal, …..etc.
7
The 7-Step Systematic Approach (Way)
for Answering a DI inquiry … Cont’
4) Develop strategy of searching, then conduct search
according to the developed strategy
– Searching strategy depends on the ultimate question & the purpose of the
inquiry
– Start searching tertiary sources, then move to secondary sources if necessary,
which will lead you to the primary sources
5) Perform evaluation, analysis, and synthesis
– Evaluate the information you get from the search (information quality),
– then analyze the relevance of the information to the ultimate question
– Then synthesize a conclusion from all information you got
6) Formulate and provide response
– In a professional way- include literature sources & conflicts along with your
professional judgement
7) Conduct follow-up and documentation
– Involves checking with the requestor to make sure his question has been
sufficiently & completely answered
– Of vital importance is to document all steps in this process End… any Question?!!
8

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Drug Information Center

1) Obtain demographics of inquirer (full name, telephone number, email

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