The work of the National Prescribing Centre
An outline of how the National Prescribing Centre provides a
knowledge service, described by its Medical Director, Dr Neal
Maskrey.
keywords: knowledge
services, clinical decision support, information access,
evidence-based drug therapy, prescribing, medicines management.
abstract
The National Prescribing Centre (NPC) promotes high-quality,
cost-effective prescribing and medicines management by producing and
disseminating evidence-based information on prescribing and drug
therapies to the NHS and the Department of Health.
It maintains a database of new medicines and new indications
being developed in the pharmaceutical industry, as part of its
horizon-scanning activities, which provides accurate information for
their introduction in clinical use.
The NPC holds regular workshops for prescribers and pharmacists
and its publishing arm, MeReC Publications, produces bulletins,
briefings and overviews on topics and issues in medicinal therapy.
It also hosts the national collaborative Medicines Management
Services programme.
The need for the NPC’s services is growing rapidly and becoming
increasingly popular as healthcare modernisation policies are put
into practice.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2003; 20(4): 23–4.
|
