Drug Information Bulletin (Electronic)

Volume: 4

Drug Information Centre (DIC) Indian Pharmaceutical Association, Bengal Branch Tele fax: 033 24612776, E-mail: ipabengal.dic@gmail.com Web Site: http://www.ipabengal.org Contact: 09830136291

Number: 32

20th November 2010

Content Report: From Pledges to Action-A Partners Forum on Womens & Childrens Health Optimizing the roles of health workers to improve MDGs 4 and 5 Virtual Global Discussion Forum Pharma Websites Fall Short of Audience Needs Pharmaceutical Promotion Does Not Improve Quality of Prescribing International Patient Safety Conference

Report on

From Pledges to Action-A Partners Forum on Womens & Childrens Health 12-14th November 2010 In order to achieve MDG 4 & MDG 5 by 2015 set by United Nations (UN) The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) & Govt. of India have organized this forum at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, India. The programme was inaugurated by Her Excellency Prativa Devisingh Patil, President of India in presence of Dr. Margaret Chan - Director General, World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Ann Starrs President, Family Care International & Co-Chair, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, Sri Ghulam Nabi Azad Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India, Sri Dinesh Tribedi - Minister of State, Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India, His Excellency Shivraj Patil Governor of Punjab, Ms. K. Sujatha Rao, Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India The two day programme has been attended by health Ministers of 12 Countries, Health Ministers of 9 States of India, representatives and health care professionals of about 50 countries around the globe. Along with other health care professionals Pharmacists from different countries were also participated in this forum. Sri P. D. Sheth, Vice president, FIP and Dr. Subhash C. Mandal, Member- HCPA constituency (India) actively participated and interacted in several sessions in this programme.

2 Optimizing the roles of health workers to improve MDGs 4 and 5 Virtual Global Discussion Forum On behalf of the WHO Guidance/Optimizing 4MNH community team I would like to thank you for contributing to a very interesting discussion since Monday 8 November. The focus of our discussion has been on optimizing the roles of health workers to improve maternal and newborn health. We divided the discussion into 3 themes; 1. optimizing health worker roles at the primary care level, 2. optimizing health worker roles at the community level and 3. optimizing the roles of traditional birth attendants. Our objective was to reach out to a broad range of stakeholders to inform the scope of the work on "WHO Recommendations to optimize health worker roles to attain MDGs 4 and 5". Between 8 and 16 November, 2010, the community had 704 members from 92 countries. There were contributions from 187 members from 33 countries. We are extremely pleased with the range of contributions both in terms of the issues brought up and the countries the contributions came from. To summarize briefly; Optimizing health worker roles should take into account all services that can be delivered in a setting and then work towards how different categories of health workers can share and deliver practices in an optimal way. Therefore the focus should not be on shifting tasks but rather figuring out the best ways to deliver effective interventions. In general, midwives have the training and skills to deliver most interventions to prevent and treat complications that can be handled at the primary care level. Depending on the training and supervision other health workers could deliver promotional and preventive interventions. There is wide range of lay health worker (LHW) programmes in many countries. The training, supervision and monitoring aspects also vary. Most contributors seem comfortable with LHW delivering promotional interventions to improve health care seeking behaviour, healthy life styles, nutritional supplements and counseling for various issues such as HIV, contraceptive needs etc. but there is less agreement on some interventions such as injections and some forms of therapeutic interventions. It needs to be acknowledged that training and supervision aspects may determine whether a particular cadre can take on additional responsibilities. Regarding the roles of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) most seem to agree that in settings where serious service gaps exist appropriately trained and supervised TBAs can play an important role in improving maternal and newborn health. Several members suggested that with good planning and established linkages between the community and the facilities LHW could facilitate timely and efficient transfer of women and babies that require higher level care. What happens next? The contributions from the forum will be synthesized, summarized and presented at the first 'scoping' meeting of various stakeholders (around 20) in Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 December 2010. The outcome of this meeting will be a limited number of key questions and critical outcomes that will initiate the guidance development process. Questions where there is consensus already, widespread use in practice and no safety issues will be noted but will not be discussed further. Questions where there is controversy, uncertainty about benefits and harms, applicability issues, differences in implementation across settings will form the basis of the guidance work.

3 The questions will be further refined after the meeting and will lead to the conduct of new systematic reviews or updates of existing ones. We hope to conduct a review of country case studies as well. We will post the outcome of the December meeting to the community. We hope to inform the community about our progress, timeline and seek additional feedback during the course of this project. The work will be coordinated by a working group in WHO that includes staff from the departments of Reproductive Health and Research, Making Pregnancy Safer, Child and Adolescent Health, Human Resources for Health, HIV/AIDS and two partnerships, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and Global Health Workforce Alliance and the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services. The Department of Reproductive Health and Research is the focal point for this project (Dr A. Metin Glmezoglu, email gulmezoglum@who.int). We thank all members again and look forward to working together in this important project. Metin Glmezoglu (for the WHO working group) Pharma Websites Fall Short of Audience Needs U.S. consumers seeking medical advice are turning to medical websites, social media sites, online communities and informational websites in far greater numbers than pharma web sites, according to a new survey. Survey authors say that pharmaceutical companies that are not fully leveraging multiple online channels are missing a real opportunity to address this captive audience. They say there will continue to be significant, disruptive innovations in the pharmaceutical sales and marketing model within the next five years.

Pharmaceutical Promotion Does Improve Quality of Prescribing

Not

American Medical News reports a review published in the October PLoS Medicine has found that "pharmaceutical promotion through drug rep visits, medical journal advertisements and company-sponsored meetings rarely results in higher-quality prescribing." Dr. Geoffrey Spurling, senior lecturer at the University of Queensland School of Medicine in Brisbane, Australia, said it's important for physicians "to realize that they are not invulnerable to persuasion techniques." All but one of the 58 studies evaluated by Dr. Spurling and his colleagues "found that the quality of prescribing -looking at guideline adherence, effectiveness and safety, among other metrics -- was either

4 unaffected or harmed by pharmaceutical promotion." International Patient Safety Conference 1st-3rd October, 2010, All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi, India The first International Conference on Patient Safety at AIIMS, New Delhi was organized under the Chairmanship of Prof. L. R. Murmu and inaugurated by Prof. R. C. Deka, the Director AIIMS on Friday, 1st October,2010,at JLN-Auditorium of AIIMS. The basic objectives of the conference were: 1. To enhance participant's understanding of important concepts in patient safety and contribute to set off national agendas for patient safety. 2. To exchange information about patient safety initiatives and explore emerging areas of colloboration for better understanding of the extent of problems and develop solutions. 3. To facilitate union of disciplines and organizations across the continuum of care, championing a collaborative, inclusive, multistakeholder approach. The conference were attended by 680 delegates all over the World like John Sandars (The University of Leeds, UK), Bonnie Arquila,( SUNY Downstate Medical Center, New York, US) , Manish Shah, (National Patient Safety Foundation, USA), Krishnan Sankaranarayan, (Tawam Hospital, ABU Dhabi, UAE) and the Faculty members and students of Medicine ,Alternative medicines (Ayurveda, Homeopathy and Siddha) Nursing ,Dental, Physiotherapy, Lab. Technology, and Pharmacy (Pharm.D and Pharmacy Practice), Manufactures of Drugs/ Medical Devices, Lawyers , Managers of Hospitals and Nursing Homes and members of various Professional Associations and working paramedical professionals in various institutions. Faculty and students of various institutions all over the country had presented their posters relevant to the patient safety. The maximum number of posters FIFTY- FIVE were from Pharmacy Institutions .Dr. Sunil Kr. Jain, Chief Pharmacist, of AIIMS and Vice-President IPA(Delhi Branch) was instrumental in promoting the essential services of Pharmacists required to be performed in patient 'care as well as maximum participation of Pharmacy professionals from India in this conference. IPA (Delhi Branch) had also participated in this conference and on the behalf of branch Dr. Sunil Kr. Jain, Vice President, and Dr. Tanveer Naved, Dr. Sushma Talegaonkar; Pankaj Jain (all council members) had attended.