For the patients who take the medications prescribed by the doctors, it may not make any difference but when physicians see the patients in the emergency department across the world, or in the doctor offices it is utmost important that the correct medicines be known to the physician who is going to take some actions about that patient. So when asked about the medicines that the person is taking the answer sometimes come in the form of a riddle like “blue pill” or” green pill ” or at times some name is given to the doctor and the doctor is totally unfamiliar with the names of that medicine. The branded names of the drug do not give any clue as to which substance they contain and the class of medicines they belong to. There are about 700 or more pharmaceutical companies that make drugs and market them in Pakistan. There are not very many sources that help the physicians understand the medicines that are been manufactured and distributed to the healthcare market of Pakistan. Physicians like me get frustrated when they wanted to know what drugs the patient is taking and get no clue, despite spending time figuring it out. It is a vital piece of information and a correct answer makes a huge difference in the treatment.
Patients who present with any symptoms, that may have been the result of the medicine that they are taking, or the doctor when prescribing a drug don’t want to prescribe something from a drug class that the patient may already be on, and yet another times because of not knowing the ingredients the patients are prescribed the same drug that he is already on because the treating physician could not figure out the drug that the patient was taking. These incidences are all too common and all too dangerous and need to be averted at all costs. A good healthcare has to be safe to the patients and be able to avoid the pitfalls or create a system that closes these loopholes for the sake of patient’s safety.
A drug list that should have the names of all generic and branded medicines and be easily available to the physicians, pharmacists, drug stores and hospitals. This will create the necessary input that will be utilized by the people who need it the most to help them streamline the care and avoid the mistake. As of now the physicians rely of pharmaguide and other books which do not do justice to the physicians in quickly getting the info. Sometimes it is not appropriately sorted and other times it does not give proper information. So the physicians get themselves familiarize with only few medicines to avoid mistakes. But the problem comes when the patients are on some medicines and the physicians have no idea regarding the drug.
Medical representatives also help physicians in making them familiarize about some medicines, but that list is limited and they know about medicines that their company makes and markets. So when looking at this scenario it is quite interesting to note that there is co-ordinated efforts to help the physicians in providing good healthcare and educating them so to avoid at times costly mistakes of double medicines, and/or inappropriate combinations. People who live in the big cities may not be at that much disadvantage, but people who live outside big cities are certainly at a loss when it comes to getting drug information.
We are trying to be one of the resources for the physicians and the pharmacists in their quest to get drug information. We are trying to utilize the internet to our advantage in this regard with creating the electronic drug guide and making it available for all the people. We eventually will create full drug reference on the net which will be easily accessible across different plate-forms. There are a few places which can be utilized at present for anyone who wants to get the information. These sites include.
www.pakmedinet.com
www.pakistandrugsinde.blogspt.com
www.epharmaguide.com
www.druginfosys.com
I can be reached at erdoc@shifa.com.pk