Week 2- Medicines information Flashcards
what is medicines information (MI) ?
NHS pharmacy based service
Aim to support safe, effective and efficient use of medicine by the provision of
evidence-based information and advice on therapeutic use.
To support medicines management within NHS organisations
To support health care professionals optimise medicines for individual patients
who provides the service?
A network of 220 local MI centres 14 regional centres 1 National centre Staffed by: pharmacists, technicians with clinical expertise, pre-reg trainee pharmacists and technicians
what do medicine information offer?
An enquiry answering service on ALL aspects of drug therapy.
Local centres support their organisations clinical governance, medicines management and patient safety agenda through:
- The clinical pharmacy service
-Formulary and Drug and Therapeutic/prescribing committee
- Producing guidelines and patient group directions
Regional centres provide strategic support for Clinical Commissioning Groups and a number host specialist advisory services.
who is the medicines information for?
Patients (via the helpline) and HCP within the hospital.
Regional - HCP in primary care, patients within the region.
how are enquires received for medicines information?
Route: telephone, e-mail, letter, in
person.
what are the types of enquires that come through medicines information?
Administration/dosage Adverse effects Choice of therapy Drugs in pregnancy and lactation Identification Pharmaceutical Pharmacology and pharmacokinetics Toxicity Review Complementary medicine Substance misuse Non-clinical
what are the different levels of enquiry levels?
Level 1 – Data. Information only. 1-2 sources.
Level 2 – Searches. Multiple database searches. Little interpretation or advice.
Level 3 – Interpretation – Primary literature retrieval, analysis and interpretation.
what happens next after an enquiry?
- Documentation – ESSENTIAL
Enquirer returns
Work saving
Complaints
Education
Workload statistics
Audit/governance - Resources (NOT inclusive))
BNF, Department of health (DoH), Drug Tariff, e Medicines Compendium (eMC),
EMBASE, Medline, MHRA, Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS), medicines learning portal
Adverse effects – interactive Drug Analysis Profile (Yellow card), Commission on Human
Medicines, G6PD website
EBM – NICE, Clinical Knowledge Summary (CKS), Cochrane Library
Lactation – LactMed, UKMi Drugs in Lactation database - Reply
You will come to agreement with the enquirer as to the timescale and method of reply.
how do you answer enquiries for medicines information?
Who is asking What are they asking Why are they asking When they need it by How are we going to do that?
what information is needed to find out who is asking?
-Who is asking?
-Colleague, doctor, nurse, healthcare
professional, carer, relative, patient
-Name and contact details
-Address
what information is needed to find out what they are asking?
-What do they want to know?
-Ask questions for further relevant
information
-Agree clearly the question that needs to
be answered
-What resources have they already
looked at?
what information is needed to find out why are they are asking?
Is it a general or a patient specific enquiry? Patient specific: Patient – age, DoB, sex, name/initials, hospital/NHS number Medicines – dose, form, indication, how long been taking, recent changes, OTC/herbal/homeopathic Disease – current conditions, relevant lab test results Additional information depends on the enquiry topic: Administration of medicines Adverse drug reactions Drugs in pregnancy/breastfeeding Drug Interactions …and many more topics!
what information is needed to find out when are they needing it for and how are we going to do it?
ASAP is not helpful! Negotiate but be reasonable – when do they NEED an answer by? Need to balance the urgency of each enquiry (and what sort of resources you will need to look through) How do they want the response?
