Medication Information for Consumers

Hello Members,

The presentation yesterday on the Canadian Clinical Drug Data Set was very informative.

Once it becomes established, there are great opportunities to link other Health Canada resources using their defined nomenclature, especially for consumers.

I recently came across the consumer (patients and caregivers) equivalent of the Health Canada Drug Product Database available at hpr-rps.hres.ca/ which was released in February 2015 with the intent to "provide centralized access to practical and important drug information on prescription drugs so that Canadians can make better-informed decisions about their health." So, I'm hypothesizing, that when medications are e-prescribed and linked through the Clinical Drug Data Set, it makes sense that patients and caregivers are either linked to this consumer medication information, or provided with a copy from their prescriber. The community pharmacies would use the same information source as well.

This then alleviates the discrepancies between quality and consistency of medication information currently provided. As was just published by Helen Monkman and Andre Kushniruk, All Consumer Medication Information Is Not Created Equal: Implications for Medication Safety . To have each pharmacy chain / banner etc. independently creating medication information leaflets can lead to safety issues, as was demonstrated by Helen and Andre's study. They in particular noted lack of information towards drug interactions, overdose and allergic reactions. In addition, the reading grade level of pamphlets tested was between Grade 10 and 12, well above the recommendations.

Going forward, one source of medication information for patients and caregivers, that has been evaluated, designed and vetted can be a potential medication safety strategy for Canada. The Health Canada site as mentioned above is a good starting point. It potentially needs some redesign, validation and then marketing.

Any thoughts from our members?

Lisa