[e-drug] Research in Hospital Drug Use (cont'd)

[Richard Laing <laingr@who.int>]

E-drug: Research in Hospital Drug Use (cont'd)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to the article by Dr Simpson about Drug Use in Hospitals
there are two other articles in the latest Essential Drugs Monitor that
address drug use in hospitals.

The first one is
http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_9.pdf
Drug utilization in Latin America - the example of DURG-LA. Hector
Buschiazzo, Albin Chaves, Albert Figueras, Joan-Ramon Laporte

This article provides an overview of the work of Latin America's Drug
Utilization Research Group, which uses the knowledge it acquires
through research to give technical advice to drug regulatory
authorities, to guide pharmacology teaching and to collaborate on
health professionals' training in pharmacoepidemiology and
therapeutics. The article describes how members are tackling the
challenges of the information and telematics revolution, including the
creation of the SIETES database of bibliographic references, over
30% of which have an abstract or comment in Spanish.

The second available at http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_5.pdf

Drug and therapeutics committees: vehicles for improving rational
drug use Terry Green, Alex Beith, John Chalker

An article which highlights the value of hospital drug and therapeutics
committees in controlling and managing drug use, improving patient
outcomes and containing antimicrobial resistance. The authors give
details of the WHO/MSH international training course and manual
(publication due in autumn 2003) on drug and therapeutics
committees.

To get all three articles send a message to getweb@healthnet.org ,
leave the subject line blank and then put the following text into the
message:

Begin
get http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_5.pdf
get http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_9.pdf
get http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_13.pdf 
End

I share Dr Simpson's plea for more data to be published about
hospital drug use. Now that the ATC/DDD codes are available on the
web at http://www.whocc.no/atcddd/ it should be much easier for
hospital pharmacists to compile their consumption data to answer
questions such as the ones Dr Simpson is asking. Once a hospital
pharmacist knows what are the top 10 drugs being used by value and
by DDD it will be much easier for the hospital drug and therapeutic
committee to take action. 

Richard Laing (Medical Officer)
Policy, Access and Rational Use,
Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy,
World Health Organization
CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland
Tel 41 22 791 4533
Fax 41 22791 4167
E-mail laingr@who.int

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