What medicines information resources do pharmacists use, and how can you support them?

Pharmacists are crucial to the success of our healthcare system - they ensure that patients receive the correct medicines and that these medicines are used safely and effectively in the management of health conditions.

Datapharm interviewed John Hoyte, an independent pharmacist prescriber from Ashburton Prescribing, and asked him about the role of the pharmacist, and the resources they use for patient care.

Do you ever come into contact with Hospital Pharmacies?

We often interact with hospital pharmacies, especially during patient transitions from hospital to community care. The process of ensuring a patient’s prescribed medications are kept up to date as they move between secondary care (hospital) and primary care (community), is known as medicines reconciliation. This involves ensuring that any added, changed or stopped medications during their hospital stay are accurately continued over into the community setting. This is critical for patient safety, as it ensures continuity of care and prevents medication errors.  

What are some of the common scenarios requiring medicines information?  

We frequently engage with medicines information in various scenarios, such as Repeat Prescription Management – this is a complex task that requires pharmacists to ensure that patients receive their medications correctly and on time.

Another one is Medicines Reconciliation, as previously mentioned. This involves verifying that all medication changes made during hospital stays or outpatient visits are accurately reflected in the patient’s ongoing treatment plan.

There are also Medication Reviews. Pharmacists conduct reviews to assess the appropriateness of a patient’s medication regimen, ensuring that it is safe and effective.

Which sources do you go to and how frequently do you tend to go to them? 

There are a quite a number of them. It can be down to individual need and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the sheer variety. One is the British National Formulary (BNF), which is a comprehensive resource for general drug information, providing guidance on the selection, prescribing, dispensing, and administration of medicines.

Another is emc (Electronic Medicines Compendium), which provides detailed information on medicines, including summary of product characteristics (SPCs) and patient information leaflets (PILs). This resource is really essential for obtaining granular, product-specific details.
Then there are specialist resources, which may vary depending on individual preferences and the specific needs of their practice. These resources can include clinical guidelines, research articles, and other professional publications.

BUMPS (best use of medicines in pregnancy) is also a good resource - it’s got lots of information about whether drugs are safe or not in pregnancy. NICE guidance and the technology appraisals are critical, and staying up to date with them is really important.

With so many resources out there, how do you navigate this vast healthcare ecosystem?  

One of the challenges pharmacists face is navigating the complex healthcare system to access the necessary information and communicate with other healthcare professionals. This requires a combination of experience and skill, as healthcare organisations can vary significantly in their processes and structures.

Information fatigue also plays a part – the amount of information available can be overwhelming. I could list several resources on healthcare considerations like swallowing difficulties alone. Some of them are really good, some of them are sort of plug and play where you just search a drug. Some of them can be unwieldy, 180-page documents, which is a lot of information to navigate, particularly if it’s just for a single patient case.

Knowing how to find information comes with experience, but I certainly think the sheer volume of information and the pressures that you're under to find that information and stay up to date during clinic time is a real challenge for clinicians.

What would you like to see more of for medicines information providers in the pharmaceutical industry?

I think it's less about the type of information and more about how it's received and how it's delivered. I think that information is either integrated or simple to use and access. Accessibility is really key so that when you're particularly in a busy clinic where you've got short appointments and patients are coming and going, you want something that's not going to slow you down.

There was a regional rollout recently of a software tool focussed on improving cost-effective choices of medication that really slowed down the day-to-day practice and health record software – it was a helpful product but it was very inefficient to use within the software system, and so a lot of places then declined to use it because it's intolerable for them. So, it's about how you get that medicines information, that messaging and the information effectively embedded into practice.

Learn more about healthcare professionals’ content preferences

Accessibility to the right information at the right time should be a priority for providers of medicines information. At the same time, by staying informed and utilising these resources, pharmacists can provide high-quality care while minimising risk to patients.

To learn more about HCPs’ (healthcare professionals') medicines information content preferences, read our latest emc user survey report.