DRUG INFORMATION SERVICES

PRESENTED BY

ZEENATH ANJUM
 DRUG INFORMATION CENTRE (DIC)

Drug information Centre (DIC) may be defined as any organization wherein the pharmacy professionals
provide unbiased services to practitioners, biochemists, microbiologists, pharmaceutical companies, general
public and even hospital pharmacists regarding the effective and safe usage of medications

 The practitioners or doctors need accurate information about the drug effectiveness, safety and also the

cost of the prescribed drugs.

 As this process of collecting information is time consuming, the drug information Centre provides

accurate, instantaneous and up-to-date drug information which helps the practitioner to provide better
patient care services

 A pharmacy is said to be successful if it utilizes and manages drug information Centre properly
OBJECTIVES OF DIC

 To reduce the communication gap between the pharmacist and the community.

 It helps to improve the therapeutic outcome of drugs and patient compliance. This can be

done through necessary changes in the drug-dosage regimens

 To promote suitable techniques which can be adopted for effective communication between

the pharmacist and the patients as well as education and counselling of the patients. The

pharmacist can use either verbal, written or audio visual aids to educate the patients
 To promote counselling of the patients regarding,

a) Pharmacology of various drugs.

b) Vulnerable diseases and other sex related problems.

c) Drug addiction and abuse.

d) Deleterious effects of alcoholism and smoking.

e) Drug poisoning(Safe use of over the counter drugs).

POISON INFORMATION CENTER (PIC)

 A poison information Center (PIC) may be defined as a specialized unit set up in hospitals

that advises on or assists with, the toxicity assessment and treatment recommendations for
the effective management of poisoning cases.

 PICs are ready, round the clock source of help as they can provide authentic information and

guidelines pertaining to first aid and treatment of emergencies related to toxic exposures.

 In India the first PIC was the National Poisons Information Centre (NPIC) established by

AIlMS at New Delhi in the year 1995. It has prepared manual and leaflets for patients as well
as the general public on prevention and management of various poisonings.
 PICs at hospitals may operate independently or may be connected with the country's public

health service at national or regional level.

 However to fulfill their responsibilities, each PIC is required to cooperate with other PICs as

well as with the other organizations concerned with prevention of, and response to poisoning.

Staff:

A PIC generally needs a multidisciplinary team of poison information services led by a medical
toxicologist. The other team members may include physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc., having
a sound knowledge of toxicology and related scientific disciplines. They should be in regular
contact with analytical and treatment facilities.
Location:

A PIC in a hospital is required to be located near the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), preferably near the Drug
Information Centre (DIC). This would help to have a quick communication between the DIC, PIC and the
ICU staff treating the poison cases.

Resources for Management:

The resources that are to be utilized in answering poison information request include,

 Primary resources like study of original cases

 Secondary resources like Medline, international pharmaceutical abstracts, Micromedex etc.

 Tertiary resources like textbook clinical practice,guidelines, review articles etc.

 Protocol: The suggested protocol for a PIC includes the following steps

1: Secure demographics of requestor

2: Obtain background information

3: Determine and categorize the ultimate question

4: Develop strategy and conduct research

5: Perform evaluation, analysis and synthesis

6: Formulate and provide response

7: Conduct follow-up and documentation

SOURCES OF DRUG INFORMATION

The various sources from which the information pertaining to drugs can be collected is as
follows:

Primary Sources:

 The information is collected when research is done on various drugs. The information is

obtained after thorough investigations of drugs by scientists and other professional members.

 The primary sources include materials or books of researchers and also scientific journals

(Journal of Clinical and Hospital Pharmacy, Drug, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences)

Secondary Sources:

The information is collected from abstracts (general ideas or discussion in written forms). These
abstracts help in providing summary of the desired contents.

Examples of abstracts - National Abstract Scheme, Index Medicus etc.

Other secondary sources from which information can be emanated are formularies,
pharmacopoeias and textbooks.

Tertiary Sources: These sources help in providing information which is specific at that
particular period of time.

Examples: Directories, Encyclopedias, Guides of medical terminology etc.

Other Sources:

 The information can also be collected from libraries, several government bodies, laboratories,

industrial information departments etc.

 After the information has been collected from these sources, it should be properly stored, in

such a way that it is easy to retrieve as and when required.

COMPUTERIZED SERVICES

 Computerized services are the information systems that are programmed to fulfil the

requirements of both developed and developing countries based on their co-operative

reasons. As these services are desveloped to effectively store and retrieve the recorded
information and such information can be exchanged between one scientist with other
belonging to different countries.

 The main international information systems and services are MEDLINE, MEDLARs, INSPEC,

INIS, BIOGIS, AGRIS etc., whereas the computer based products and services are audio-
visuals Online, Cancer literature, Catalogue Online, selective dissemination of information
online
 In year 1971, MEDLINE was introduced, which is was nothing but a literature database of life

sciences and biomedical information. It has 6000 world’s leading biomedical journals which
was indexed in it. It comprises of dentistry, health care, medicine, nursing, pharmacy etc.

 PubMed is nothing but a free database that includes about more than 22 million citations for

biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals and other online books.

 MEDLINE PLUS is a web service which s free and is produced and maintained by NLM. It

collects the information from US NLM, the national institute of health and other US
government agencies and health related organizations.
Importance of Computers in DIC:

 Computer plays a vital role in DIC. It is an electronic device with a principle of input and

output processes. Computers are needed in DIC for management of data.

 Data management includes adding, modifying, creating or deleting information in patients

files. These reports are utilized by the pharmacist and doctors for better therapeutic outcome.
The desired information can be retrieved with ease as and when required.

With the help of certain programmes like computer aided drug designing (CADD), new drugs are
generated with desired pharmacological action. This technique is possible through-graphics.
In this, the molecular configuration of a particular drug is changed. The research information in
this related field is then added to the DIC information. Compact electronic libraries are also
present in DIC.

 In a single compact disc known as "Micro Medex". the entire information regarding various

drugs, poison and their identification etc., is present

 Due to the presence of computers in DIC, the workload has been reduced, which in turn

enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of DIC services.

 Some of the most commonly used database management systems (DBMS) in hospitals are d

BASE III +, FOX BASE + etc.

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STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL OF INFORMATION

Text Storage and Retrieval System most commonly known as Text Information Management
System (TIMS) is a computer based information storage and retrieval system which stores
textual contents of documents in machine readable form for retrieval or other kind of processing
by computer.

 It was developed to meet the growing demands of providing right information to the users at

the right time and right place.

 It facilitates better search on the collection of texts. It also avoids the risk of information loss

that can occur by abstraction during human indexing process.

Functions :

An ideal TIMS supports the following functions

1. Deals with all kinds of documents collected from the variety of sources

2. Organize and store all the documents according to the pre-determined nature of the retrieval
system.

3. Search the stored information in a user-defined search criteria and enable users to edit and
format the search results in a desired way.
Documentation Requirements by TIMS in Preclinical Development

GMP/GLP regulates the various documents generated in preclinical area. Most of these
documents are managed by the fully-validated TIMS1.

 Product Specification and Documents of Analytical Test Methods:

These are the key documents in preclinical area. They evolve along with developmental phases.
Drug substances and products and stability samples are tested based on these documents. It is
essential to ensure that the right tests are performed by the analyst against the right
specifications with the correct version of the test methods.
Hence to control these documents, a mechanism must exist in place. It can be achieved
manually or with TIMS. TIMS avoids repetition and unnecessary investigations which are
possible when done manually.

 Standard operating procedures:

These are controlled in a manner similar to product specification and documents of analytical
methods. It is critical to ensure that the scientist has acquired and used correct version of the
SOPs and destroyed or disposed them properly after use. SOPs must be accessible to user
during working hours without interruption. Hard copies of SOPs must be placed at a suitable
location so that they are accessible even when the electronic system is down.
 Research reports:

Like method validation and transfer reports, stability reports and pharmaceutical developments
reports are essential documents utilised in NDA/MAA fillings. Such type of documents are strictly
version controlled.

 Laboratory notebooks:

These are used for recording experimental procedures, raw data, observation and other key
information. Although these are rarely used for submission to regulatory agencies, they are available
to the authorities for pre-approval inspection(PAI). At present, most pharmaceutical companies utilise
paper based laboratory notebooks and electronic based notebooks are being developed.
TIMS product and their vendors:
S. No Product Vendor
1. Stellent content management Stellent
suite
2. Communique Day software
3. TeamSite Interwoven
4. P8 WCM FileNet
5. Documentation Web Publisher Documentation

6. Workplace WCM IBM

7. Ingeniux CMS Ingeniux
8. RedDot CMS RedDot Solutions