Evaluation and Critical Appraisal of a Random Sample of Drug Information Practice In United States Academic and Industry Medical Information Centers

Abstract

Capturing the best practices in an academic and pharmaceutical industry drug information center, and in turn, incorporating them into improved methodical work procedures and current services, is a goal for most drug information centers. The best practices should represent the most efficient and productive means of providing drug information. Knowing this information helps to improve workflow, decrease costs, increase overall productivity and projiciency, and improve employee and customer satisfaction. In order to critically evaluate the current situation and fully comprehend the established practice standards, an evaluation survey was conducted. Two separate surveys were sent electronically or fared to both academic and industry drug information departments. The survey focused on utilization of the drug information center within the department, practice procedures and resources utilized in answering drug information requests, training and evaluation of employees, means of providing quality assurance, and technical and operational logistics. A description and results of this survey are described.

Social Pharmacology: A Further Step in Public Health

“…Evaluation of the quality of therapeutic and health information and ways to provide information on the appropriate use of medicinal products [54][55][56].…”

Towards a conceptual framework for provider information behaviour

“…Other researchers have presented a plethora of IB and activities, some of which are sub-categories of information seeking, such as starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, extracting, verifying and ending (Ellis, 1989;Ellis et al, 1993), browsing, formatting, grouping, highlighting, indexing, citing, digesting, abstracting, formulating, transmitting, interpreting, connecting, skimming (Dervin, 1989), information retrieval (Spink and Sollenberger, 2004), browsing, environmental scanning, information encountering (Erdelez, 1999(Erdelez, , 2004, environmental scanning (Auster and Choo, 1994;Jogaratnam and Law, 2006;Hambrick, 1981;Jain, 1984), noticing, stopping, examining, capturing, returning (Erdelez, 2004), browsing (Bates, 2002;Qui, 1993;Chang and Rice, 1993), information managing including verifying, networking and accessing (Meho and Tibbo, 2003), information dissemination (Morris, 1985;Mchombu, 2003;Duggan and Banwell, 2004;Song et al, 2005), selecting, acquiring and evaluating (Fodness and Murray, 1999), incidental information acquisition (Williamson, 1998), information processing (Savolainen, 2009), human information organising behaviour (Cole and Leide, 2006), information production (Thivant, 2005), quality assuring (Shannon et al, 2000), and safety reporting and information sharing (Leighton and Davies, 2009). Some of the information activities of information providers exist in communication literature such as information manipulation (Jung, 2009), and decoding, interpreting, understanding, conveying, transmitting (Narula, 2006).…”

Drug Information: From Education to Practice

“…Drug information centers may also offer drug use policy services to nearby hospitals, health systems, or insurers; develop newsletters for health care professionals or the community; or develop continuing education programming. 4,33 Other centers have implemented additional funding mechanisms such as contracts or fee-based services with state Medicaid and community pharmacy services.…”

“…Although most of these companies have some pharmacists in their medical information departments, many also use nurses and other professionals, some of whom are not specifically trained as health care providers. 33,38 Drug information specialists are often best suited to provide optimal medical information services, ensuring that all aspects of patient care are considered before providing information.…”