INTRODUCTION TO

DRUG INFORMATION
SERVICES
DR DZUL AZRI MOHAMED NOOR
dzulazri@usm.my
OBJECTIVES:

• What is drug information?

• Scope of activities & services
• Challenges
DRUG
INFORMATIO
N SERVICES
SHPA definition
Drug information:
- Provision of written and/or verbal
information or advice about drug or
drug therapy in response to a request
from other healthcare providers,
organisations, committees, patients or
a member of the public
PURPOSE:
1. Provide
comprehensive and
2. Disseminate
evaluated
information to health
information to
care providers
optimize medication
use

3. Disseminate 4. Collect, analyze

information to the and maintain
general public updated drug
information

5. Design, produce 6. Give information

and distribute drug on toxicology and
information material poisoning
REQUIREMENT

Facilities
• Office on its own
• Telephone lines &
internet
• Well-equipped

Personnel

• Pharmacist(s)
• Supporting staff
• Skills
ACTIVITIES OF DIC

Service & Education &

Admnistratio training
n

Research &
Scholarly
activity
A) Service and administration

1) Formulary management

• Give unbiased evaluation for P&T

committee in choosing drug
• Prepare criteria of drug usage
• Develop drug policy
2) Attend to drug information request

• Search for information

• Evaluate and give appropriate
information to solve patient-
specific problem
3) Administration

• Develop and manage budget

• Inter-department relationship
• Monitoring and reporting adverse
drug event
• Medication error reporting
• Drug on trial service
• Poison control service
• Drug therapy pharmacoeconomic
evaluation
B) Education & Training

1) Involve in pharmacy training

program
• As a course in pharmacy
curriculum
• As a clerkship

2) Continuing education for

pharmacist
3) Training to other health professional

• Staff development program

• On-service program
• Continuing education

4) Patient education

• Issuing bulletin
• Counselling
C) Research and scholarly activities

• Pharmacoepidemiology and
pharmacoeconomic studies
• Evaluate the use of electronic
information system/ database
• Involve in pharmacovigilance studies
• Other studies related to pharmacy
services
Drug Utilization Review (DUR)
• Also known as drug use evaluation (DUE)
• Ongoing, systematic, criteria-based evaluation
of drug use to ensure medicines are used
appropriately
• It can be drug or disease specific
• Can be structured  assess actual prescribing,
dispensing or administering of drug
• Classified into 3 categories:
- prospective, concurrent, retrospective
Objective DUR
• Promote optimal medication therapy
• Creating guidelines
• Evaluating effectiveness of therapy
• Enhancing accountability in
medication use process
• Controlling medicine cost
• Preventing medication related
problem
• Identifying areas for improvement
 • Clinical abuse
• Drug-disease
contraindication
• Drug dosage modification
Issues commonly
addressed by • Drug-drug interaction
Prospective DUR • Drug-patient precautions
• Formulary substitution
• Inappropriate drug treatment
 • Drug-disease interaction
• Drug dosage modification
Issues commonly
• Drug-drug interaction
addressed by • Drug-patient precautions
Concurrent DUR • Over and under utilization
• Therapeutic interchange
 • Appropriate generic use
• Clinical abuse/misuse
• Drug-disease
contraindication
• Drug-drug interaction
Issues commonly
addressed by • Inappropriate
Retrospective DUR duration/dosage
• Over and under utilization
• Therapeutic appropriateness
• Guidelines adherence
FUTURE DIRECTION & CHALLENGES
1) Information technology

 keep up with technology

 skills needed to maintain database
 personal information security

2) Pharmacoeconomics

 Added cost to drug?

 Maintenance of DIC
3) Effect on DIC services

 Decrease number of drug information

request
 Internet superseed pharmacist
recommendation?
 Other activities
REFERENCES
1. Malone P et al; Drug Information: A guide for
pharmacists; McGraw-Hill
2. Ab Fatah Ab Rahman, Mohamed Izham Mohamed
Ibrahim: Perkhidmatan Maklumat Drug In Praktis
Farmasi Hospital- Panduan Untuk Pelajar dan
Professional
3. http://www.shpa.org.au/lib/pdf/practice_standards/drug_
info_ro.pdf