E-DRUG: Spanish drug information database

["Emilio J. Sanz" <esanz@ull.es>]

E-drug: Spanish drug information database
-----------------------------------------

[There were 4 offers to help to set up a spanish version of E-drug,
including 2 offers to moderate: 
Roberto Lopez of AIS in Peru, email: ais@amauta.rcp.net.pe
and Hilbrand Haak, email: haakh@compuserve.com
Please contact them if you want to offer help (translation, addresses
of spanish-speaking essential drug colleagues etc.
We are negotiating with Healthnet to see if they can host a spanish
E-drug next to the english and french versions. Wilbert Bannenberg,
E-drug moderator June]

Dear colleagues,

I'm please to offer the access to the database "CONSULTAS-EN-RED" of the
"Canary Islands Regional Centre for Pharmacovigilance and Therapeutic
Information". This centre belongs to the "Spanish System of
Pharmacovigilance" which is distributed among the 17 Autonomous
Communities of Spain, with a Regional Centre collecting Spontaneous
Reports of Adverse Drug Reactions and giving therapeutic and drug
information to health professionals on the area.

The Regional centre of the Canary Islands covers a (beautifully
landscaped) region of 1.6 million inhabitants and around 7.000 physicians,
some 1.000 pharmacists and other health professionals, four major
hospitals and 15 smaller, and around 9 to 10.000.000 tourists a year.
The Centre is located at the Department of Pharmacology, School of
Medicine, University of La Laguna, and is run by a Clinical
Pharmacologist, two physicians, one pharmacist and a secretary. The
Centre actively promotes the report of Adverse Drug Reactions and
prepares an assessment of the causality of the reaction, follows the
case, and provides advice if needed. The "Yellow Card" Scheme is in
conection with the Spanish Database of Adverse Drug Reactions (FEDRA)
and the other 16 Regional Centres, as well as with the Coordinating
Centre in Madrid, and thus with the WHO Uppsala Centre.

Clinical and Therapeutics consultations are received from any health
professional from the islands (and abroad). The consultations are mainly
done by telephone, and are normally answered on the line by the Clinical
Pharmacologist or one of the specialists in medical information,
specially for urgent cases. Every single consultation undergoes, later
on, a bibliographic search on the common databses (more used are
Medline, IDIS, and Cochrane Collaboration CD) and the books and
bibliography of reference. A written statement is produce, and then
revised in a weekly meeting of the staff together with other specialists
from the University Hospital. Once the answer is approved, a written
response is sent to the consultant. The whole procedure could take up to
two weeks.

Since two months ago, most of the consultations produced by the centre
are available to health professionals on the web page of the centre

     http://www.csi.ull.es/medicina/farmacovigilancia

This page contains information about the centre and its activities, and
also a link to "CONSULTAS-EN-RED", the electronic database. Nowadays,
almost 1.000 consultations are available on the database, with the full
answer and the bibliographic references. This database will be available
to health professionals without a fee during this period. All questions
and answers are written in Spanish.

If you wish to get access to the database, please, visit the web page
(http://www.csi.ull.es/medicina/farmacovigilancia) and click on
"CONSULTAS-EN-RED". There, you should fill in a simple questionnaire,
and in a few days you should received your "username" and "password"
from the system, trough E-Mail.

We look forward for your interest, and hope to receive many comments and
suggestion for improvement.

Cordially,

Prof. Emilio J. Sanz, MD, PhD
Profesor Titular of Clinical Pharmacology

Regional Centre for Pharmacovigilance and
Therapeutic Information of the Canary Islands
Director
School of Medicine
University of La Laguna
38071 La Laguna. Tenerife. Spain.
Tel: +34 922 319347
Fax: +34 922 655995
Email: esanz@ull.es

NOTE! Since May 4, all telephone numbers in Spain begin with 9.
 
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