In order to strengthen the process of delivering clinically important, relevant and unbiased information on medicines to pharmacists, doctors and patients, Maharashtra State Pharmacy Council's (MSPC) Drug Information Centre (DIC) is all set to put in place a toll free number backed by a 24 x 7 call centre. This according to the officials will dispel a lot of misconceptions with regards to medical prescription, adverse drug reactions, drug usage, dosage and time schedule for patient safety.

The toll free number likely to be operational in the coming three months would be backed by a robust evidence based clinical reference software called Micromedex which is user-friendly and makes available evidence-based drug information and clinical answers much faster and easier.

Says Vijay Patil, president, MSPC, "In order to take full advantage of the toll free number, we are also planning to enhance our human resources and infrastructure to impart world class information in the most reliable manner. We are also planning to start a training centre to equip our human resource with the latest knowledge in clinical pharmacy. The diploma courses in pharmacy across the country have failed to deliver the relevant clinical knowledge to the pharmacists through its curriculum."

The concept of DICs is old but not very popular in India because of low awareness levels. First DIC in India started at JJ Hospital and KEM Hospital, Mumbai in 1968. There were around 21 DICs till 2008. In developed countries, pharmacists running medical shops are supposed to provide drug information through DICs.

Informs Dr Atmaram Pawar, dean, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune, “DICs are important because drug information helps minimise death due to adverse effect of drugs. This is more relevant because India practically lacks a system to identify the reason of deaths due to drug side effects.”

"Only government hospitals like All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Victoria Hospital, Bengaluru and few State Pharmacy Councils were equipped with DICs a few years back. After launching of Pharm D courses in India during 2008-09, each college in India started gearing up towards setting up DIC and the number of DICs in the country gradually reached the figure of around 100 or so. But very few of them are working effectively. Reason being that they are inclined more towards academic information and not into delivering clinically relevant information and details," he informs.

Taking cue from the developed countries where running a DIC is the main job of a pharmacist, DICs should ideally be promoted in the country, Dr Pawar advocates.