| Medicines are one of the most common health interventions. Expenditure on pharmaceuticals range from 10–20 % of all health expenditure in rich countries & from 20–60 % in poor countries. Knowledge of appropriate & safe medicines has grown. But the incidence of medicines adverse effects remains high. In a UK study 6.5% of hospitals admissions were related to an adverse drug reaction (ADR). And as many as 10% of hospital admissions may result in death or disease due to errors, half of which may be avoidable. There are gaps in what we know. But even where there is sufficient knowledge, brokering of that knowledge is insufficient. There is a clear & present need to build a network of stakeholders in patient safety, to strengthen information & share the evidence towards actionable learning. The EC Work Programme for 2007–2008 relating to health calls for projects that "advance the applications of evidence based medicine in Europe". This proposal will respond to that call by strengthening what we know about medicines, sharing that knowledge, & putting that knowledge to use, to reduce patient deaths & adverse effects due to medicines. Specifically, building patient safety networking to: 1. support & strengthen consumer reporting of ADRs & adverse events 2. expand the role of national pharmacovigilance centres to prevent medicine-related adverse events 3. promote better & broader use of existing pharmacovigilance data for patient safety 4. develop additional methods of pharmacovigilance to complement data from spontaneous reporting systems. Achieving these objectives will help build the scientific basis needed for making informed policy decisions on disease prevention & therapy, & management of resources for health. In particular achieving these objectives will help to identify best clinical practice, to understand decision-making in clinical settings in primary & specialized care & to foster application of evidence-based medicine & patient empowerment. |
