Invited Speaker

New Model of Regional Drug and Poisoning Information Center in Saudi Arabia
Yousef Ahmed Alomi, Amani M. Aleman, Fahad S. Al-Refa
Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVES: To describe the New Module of Regional Drug and Poisoning Information Center in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

METHODS: American Society of Health-System Pharmacist (ASHP) Guidelines through the best practice standard 2008 with emphasis of drug information services, Adverse Drug Reaction System, Medication Errors program, Patient Education, Research and Clinical Trail, Pharmacokinetics, and Role of pharmacist in Bio-informatics were reviewed. National Hospital Standard of Saudi Arabia with emphasis on Pharmacy Standard from Central Board of Accreditation for Healthcare Institutions 2006 also was reviewed with WHO guidelines of Drug Information Services. The authors visited some local and regional Drug and Poisoning Information Center and review their activities in Saudi Arabia.

RESULTS: New module of Regional Drug and Poisoning Information Center had been established since October 2007. It consists of Drug Information Center, Poisoning and Clinical Toxicology Center, Bio-Information Center, Pharmacovigilance Center, Pharmacoeconomic Center, Clinical Pharmacokinetics Center, Research & Clinical Trail Center, Staff Development & Training Center, Documentation and Quality of Informatics, Administration and Financial Department, and Secretary Department. Policy and Procedures was written for each center and department, Standards of practice were established for each section. Workload and Human resources were analyzed with financial budget before starting the activities. We divided the plan into three stages, first
stage to cover health care professional of our hospital (1350 beds) and MOH, then to cover more than eight hospitals, then to cover all public in the region and Saudi Arabia.

CONCLUSIONS: This new module will serve several hospitals at one region with different specialties, and utilize all the human and financial resources available in the region, and save a lot of money, it is better than establishing several small drug information centers.