survey of drug information centers in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

To assess resources available and differences in practice among Drug and Poison Information Centers [DPIC in Riyadh-City, Saudi Arabia and to investigate the feasibility for opening communication channels to encourage sharing of information and resources. The results of this study identified the existence of duplications of services and information resources among DPICs. The majority of the respondents were actively involved in many clinical pharmacy services that were assumed by the DPICs. The access of the majority of the DPICs to more than one resource together with the acceptance of sharing informational resources by DPICs will encourage more sharing of information. One way to achieve this is through implementation of a network. This implementation could be facilitated by institution of a regional Internet connectivity. Alternatively in the mean time we suggest KACST's [King Abdulazziz City for Science and Technology] network to be used as a basis for shared access to drug information references. Similarly, the sharing of a network could reduce the delivered cost of services offered by DP improve communication and therefore the quality of hospital-based drug information services within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The survey also, uncovered inconsistencies in QA and other practices that could affect the quality of drug information services delivered. Therefore, implementation of quality assurance guidelines would certainly help to standardize and improve quality of services provided by these OPICs. Additionally, this will make pharmacists able to re evaluate the service they provide and be more capable to re-survey DPICs to detect any changes that may occur in the future. A proposed QA program to judge the Riyadh DPICs are shown in Appindex. Moreover, the use of a computerized inquiry retrieval system for documentation of the requests of DPICs is important to sustain favorable operational and fiscal decisions toward the DPJCs. Such a system can also, offers another feasible channel for sharing a valuable source of information among these DPICs. In addition, it can greatly facilitates the access to the repeated inquiries and provides data to enable statistical evaluation for purposes of quantifying workload and for periodic quality assurance review and assessment. Furthermore, involvement in an outstanding Continuing Education [CE] program sponsored by these DPICs will satisfy the vital professional need for the progress of the pharmacy practice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia