Selective use of online literature searching by a drug information service

The use of online searching in a drug information center on a regular but selective basis is described. Of 90-100 information requests received monthly in a university-affiliated drug information center located within the health sciences library, five to eight computer searches are performed. All other questions are answered using a manual search. The computer searches are conducted by a medical librarian who works closely with the pharmacist. For each search, the library charges the drug information center for at least 12 minutes of connect time; charges cover the library's direct costs only. The drug information center is staffed by a director and assistant director; in addition, Pharm.D. students and clinical pharmacy residents work there. Factors influencing the decision to do an online rather than a manual search include budgetary constraints, how quickly an answer is needed, the success of a preliminary manual search, and the complexity of the request. Considerations for conducting online searches through a library rather than by the staff of the drug information center include requisite search skills, costs, and accessibility to computer search services. The selective use of online searches through a health sciences library is a viable means of accessing online information in a drug information center that cannot support its own online literature-retrieval system.     

Cost of implementing and maintaining a hospital-pharmacy-based online literature search system

The costs of implementing and maintaining an online literature search system are described. The drug information service component of the department of pharmaceutical services pursued computerization to ensure the availability of timely and comprehensive drug information and to provide hands-on experience in computerized literature retrieval for its undergraduate and graduate students. Three major implementation costs were identified: the cost of purchasing the computer hardware, the expense of a training program for the online search program, and the ongoing user's fee for access to the databases. These implementation expenses were covered through nontraditional sources of funding, and no money was required from the hospital. The system received hospital-wide publicity through a number of prominent communication vehicles when it was implemented. In its first year, there were 448 requests requiring computer searches of a total 4150 requests for drug information. Of these 448, 255 originated from physicians, 138 from pharmacists, and 55 from nurses and drug manufacturers. Medline was the most frequently accessed database, accounting for 62.6% of the charges; Toxline accounted for 32.3% and miscellaneous files 5.1%. The average monthly charge (user's fee) was +238, which was within the initial projection for the yearly expense. Because of the success of this program, the system's costs were added to the operating budget of the drug information service.     

Online literature-retrieval systems: how to get started

Basic information describing online literature-retrieval systems is presented; the power of online searching is also discussed. The equipment, expense involved, and training necessary to perform online searching efficiently is described. An individual searcher needs only a computer terminal and a telephone; by telephone, the searcher connects with an online vendor's computer at another location. The four major U.S. vendors (Dialog, Bibliographic Retrieval Services, Systems Development Corporation, and the National Library of Medicine) are compared. A step-by-step procedure of logging in and searching is presented. Using the International Pharmaceutical Abstracts database as an example, 17 access points to locating an article via an online system are compared with only two (the subject and author index entry) of a printed service. By searching online, one can search the published literature on a specific topic in a matter of minutes. An online search is very useful when limited information is available or the search question contains a term that is not in a printed index.     

Online information retrieval in pharmacy and related fields

Online information retrieval in pharmacy and related fields is described. Factors involved in determining whether to conduct an online search are discussed, including characteristics of appropriate and less suitable topics, advantages and limitations of online searching versus manual searching, and possible types of searches. The process of preparing for an online search, involving the determination of search vocabulary, relevant citations, important authors, time frame, special categories (such as language, publication type, and reviews), and the number of citations needed, as well as choosing a database, is explained. Sample search strategies on MEDLINE and IPA are illustrated to demonstrate the basic search commands and to compare file retrievals on the sample subject. Pharmacy-related bibliographic databases, general-interest databases, end-user search services, and full-text and numeric databases are profiled. Online database searching can be a cost-efficient and flexible alternative to manual literature searching for pharmacists. Although most online searching is currently conducted by librarian-search specialists, end-user searching is a growing trend, as is the availability of full-text databases.     

Identification and physicians?? views of their commonly-used drug information sources in Singapore

Aim To examine physicians?? use and views of various sources for general drug information and to determine the kind of drug-related questions they receive. Method An online survey of general practitioners who were Singapore Medical Association members was conducted. The survey consisted of questions about the physicians?? demographics, the drug information source they used most often, their opinions on the information from that source, and the types of drug-related questions they received from patients. Results Among the 236 physicians who responded to the survey, 58.1% used reference texts most frequently; of these respondents, 80.3% used the Monthly Index of Medical Specialties. Only 4.2% most often go to pharmacists for drug information. Of the 75 (31.8%) respondents who chose online sources, about half used Google while the remainder used specific websites. Most respondents rated drug information from reference texts as somewhat comprehensive (71.5%) and usually reliable (81.8%). The choice of drug information sources was associated with physicians?? age, place of practice, access to the Internet, and clinical experience (P?Conclusion Most physicians in Singapore search for general drug information using reference texts and consider them to be comprehensive and reliable. Questions pertaining to adverse drug reactions were the drug-related questions physicians most frequently receive. It is important for physicians to have appropriate drug information references and learn methods with which to verify the credibility of drug information obtained from the Internet. Pharmacists can also work to improve their role as providers of drug information.     

Comparative usefulness of MEDLINE searches performed by a drug information pharmacist and by medical librarians

The usefulness of MEDLINE searches conducted by a drug information pharmacist who had received online training was compared with the usefulness of searches conducted by medical librarians. Searches for literature pertinent to select drug information requests received at a university drug consultation service during a three-month period were conducted independently by the pharmacist and one of three reference librarians. The three librarians had received extensive online search training and were experienced in conducting MEDLINE searches; the pharmacist was trained by a fourth experienced librarian-searcher using National Library of Medicine (NLM) training materials. For each drug information request, the pharmacist and the librarian searched two MEDLINE files on the NLM service. The printouts generated by the two searchers were evaluated by two drug information pharmacists in terms of how useful each list of citations would be in enabling the drug information pharmacists to answer the related question. The majority of printouts in 48 sets of searches were judged to be useful. Of the 96 possible "best search" votes (two votes for each of the 48 sets of printouts), the pharmacist's searches received 34 votes, the librarians' searches received 28 votes, and there were 34 tie votes. The numbers of useful primary and alternate citations were found to be the best predictors of whether a given printout would receive the "best search" rating. MEDLINE searches performed by a drug information pharmacist with online training, in response to drug information requests, were judged by drug information pharmacists to be as useful as searches performed by librarians.     

Fifteen years of drug information in Christchurch Hospital

AIM: To determine changes in numbers, demography and type of questions posed to the drug information service (DIS) at Christchurch Hospital over the last fifteen years. METHODS: The database of the DIS was used to retrieve data for one-year periods including the period of establishment in 1985/1986, 1993/1994 and 1999/2000. RESULTS: The number of questions per month increased from 26 in 1985/1986 to 284 in 1999/2000. The majority of questions have related to adverse drug reactions, contraindications/precautions, drug selection, interactions, and administration/dosage. Questions on drug interactions showed the greatest relative increase, from 8% to 19% of all questions. A disproportionate increase in requests came from primary care, which provided 14% of questions in 1985/1986 and 38% in 1999/2000. Computer databases are the major resource used currently whereas journal articles and textbooks dominated in 1985/1986. CONCLUSIONS: There has been a marked increase in use of the DIS despite a relatively constant population base. This may reflect an increased awareness of both the availability of the service and recognition of the complexity of medicines. The computer database is a useful reference source, decreasing repetition of search pathways and allowing audit to assist in the ongoing improvement of the service.     

TOXLINE--an information resource

TOXLINE is the National Library of Medicine's online bibliographic database covering the toxicologic, pharmacologic, biochemical, physiologic, and environmental effects of chemicals. It is a merged database composed of subsets from 13 different sources. Most of the citations in TOXLINE refer to journal articles; other publication types include meeting reports, monographs, patents, research project reports, technical reports and theses. TOXLINE is searched using a number of synonyms to fully express a concept, as compared to MEDLINE which can be searched by standard terms, thus obviating the need for synonym search terms. Toxicologists, other scientists, and clinicians are encouraged to become familiar with online searching techniques and to conduct their own searches.     

The effectiveness of hospital pharmacy in the UK: methodology for finding the evidence

OBJECTIVE: To describe the methodology used to identify United Kingdom (UK) hospital pharmacy practice research work from the last two decades. METHOD: A comprehensive search for citations that appeared to contribute to the overall evidence or in some way measure, demonstrate or evaluate the effectiveness of UK hospital pharmacy practice. This involved a search of thirteen electronic databases covering a wide variety of UK, European and international publications, hand searching of selected UK journals and conference proceedings, a written request for details sent to all UK Chief Pharmacists and Directors of Pharmacy and a bibliography search of each reference identified. All appropriate references were then added to a single computer database. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Number of references identified by each strand of the search strategy. RESULTS: The search initially highlighted a total of 10,099 articles from the thirteen reference databases, but only 281 were considered suitable for inclusion in the final review. Hand searching of the selected journals and conference proceedings yielded another 173 references and the written requests to hospital chief pharmacists resulted in another 128 references being identified. Finally, bibliography searches of the articles identified by the above three methods resulted in another 242 references, bringing the total number of references to 824. CONCLUSION: This paper describes a strategy to identify a comprehensive collection of citations supporting the evidence for the effectiveness of hospital pharmaceutical services in the UK. The large number of references identified demonstrate that hospital pharmacists in the UK make significant contributions to both the research literature and to patient care. However, database searches alone highlighted just 34% of the total references finally included in this study, demonstrating that pharmacy practice research work may be difficult to access by conducting database searches alone. The results from this project provide a resource for the profession and can be utilised as a foundation for future developments in both the delivery and research of hospital pharmacy practice.     

Towards a gold standard: regarding quality in public domain chemistry databases and approaches to improving the situation

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of freely accessible online databases serving the chemistry community. The internet provides chemistry data that can be used for data-mining, for computer models, and integration into systems to aid drug discovery. There is however a responsibility to ensure that the data are high quality to ensure that time is not wasted in erroneous searches, that models are underpinned by accurate data and that improved discoverability of online resources is not marred by incorrect data. In this article we provide an overview of some of the experiences of the authors using online chemical compound databases, critique the approaches taken to assemble data and we suggest approaches to deliver definitive reference data sources.     

Computer use in Canadian drug information centres

In July 1988, a survey was conducted to determine the extent of computer use by Canadian drug information centres. A questionnaire, mailed to 36 major DI centres, yielded an 89% return. Computers were being used by 75% of the responding centres (65.6% personal computers, 9.4% mainframe). Word processing was the most popular computer application, followed by formulary maintenance, online literature searching, compiling workload statistics, pharmacokinetic calculations, storing answered requests, and storing journal article citations. Medline was the most common database accessed; the National Library of Medicine was the most popular vendor. Compact disc read only memory systems were used by 18.75% of centres. Some respondents reported developing internal programs for drug information.     

Selection of scientific periodicals to monitor drug safety information using Excerpta Medica and Japicdoc in the post marketing surveillance of drugs

In order to select important journals to be monitored for efficient collection of literature information on drug safety, a retrospective search was made of the safety information in the Excerpta Medica (EM) database between 1979 and 1981. The search provided 54,005 references to drug safety, which were found in a total of 2,536 journals. Fifty percent of the references appeared in only 148 journals, or 6% of all journals surveyed. A similar search, carried out using the Japicdoc (JD) database, provided 9,268 references in 172 journals. To cover all the necessary information appearing in overseas journals, however, a retrospective search of a bibliographic database is required as a cost-effective means to improve the comprehensiveness of the collection of information. In domestic journals, because JD includes fewer journals than EM, all of the 172 journals can be monitored for the collection of drug safety information.     

Enhancing the effectiveness of similarity-based virtual screening using nearest-neighbor information

We test the hypothesis that fusing the outputs of similarity searches based on a single bioactive reference structure and on its nearest neighbors (of unknown activity) is more effective (in terms of numbers of high-ranked active structures) than a similarity search involving just the reference structure. This turbo similarity searching approach provides a simple way to enhance the effectiveness of simulated virtual screening searches of the MDL Drug Data Report database.     

Clinical pharmacology and the provision of drug information

Summary Clinical pharmacologists have a service role in the provision of drug information to individuals both in hospitals and primary health care. We present here a systematic approach in answering questions in a drug information centre (DIC), and describe the working method and the documentation of the work in a question answer (Q/A) data base.Drugline is a full-text data base offering problem-oriented drug evaluation comparable to a clinical consultation. The drug information is produced in a non-commercial drug information centre sponsored by the national health care sector and the National Corporation of Swedish Pharmacies, and run jointly by clinical pharmacologists and pharmacists.A minor part of Drugline is available in English for online searching, in parallel with Medline at the database host, the Medical Information Centre at the Karolinska Institute Library and Information Centre, and the users represent mainly medical libraries, hospital pharmacies, university clinics, and the pharmaceutical industry. A network of DICs has been organized in Swedish university hospitals with access to Drugline for searching and the storage of questions and answers.This network has the potential for expansion throughout Europe. It offers the unique possibility of complementing drug product information with problem-oriented drug information emerging from cases in the real world of prescribing.     

Design and implementation of a common drug information database for a university hospital

Background: Providing high quality problem oriented drug information relies on the ability to easily collect appropriate background information on clinical cases, to access relevant information from published sources by defined search strategies and to store and retrieve previously answered questions. To do this efficiently, an easy to use, flexible and reliable drug information database is necessary. Methods: We designed and implemented an Intranet based drug information database for a major university hospital in Germany. The overall design and the technical details of its design are discussed. We developed a generic, XML based data model for pharmaceutical inquiries including a MeSH oriented system of 99 pharmaceutical qualifiers to enable efficient indexing of questions and the searching of indexed questions.Results: The system provides query statistics and various search algorithms. The software implementation takes into account recent FDA recommendations for software used in clinical trials; internal review for quality control is supported. The database currently consists of 4224 records after 3.5 years of operation. Each inquiry consists of 50 items, 18 of 50 are categorized; 135 text elements support data entry. Our evaluation is focused on technical feasibility, user acceptance and query patterns.Conclusion: The intensive use and widespread acceptance of the database indicates a need for a computerized drug information system and suggests that Intranet technology can perform this task.     

The utilization of Arabic online drug information among adults in Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, the utilization of the world wide web has become increasingly popular. However, the exact figure of such use is unknown. This study aimed to determine the percentage of, and experience with, online Arabic drug information by Arabic-speaking adults in Saudi Arabia. A web based questionnaire was used. The questionnaire language was Arabic. Public were invited to participate in the survey through e-mails, Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook in March 2012. The survey included 17 items examining the types of accessed Arabic drug information, the respondent’s demographics, their ability to easily find and understand Arabic drug-related information, and their trustfulness and dependency on such information websites. Of the 422 Arabic speaking adults who answered the questionnaire, 88% stated that they used Arabic websites to answer drug-related questions. Of the respondents, 50% had a bachelor’s degree, 44% were young adults, over half were female (60%), and 72% of them have a chronic disease. The ease of retrieving online information was the most common reason (69%) for consulting such websites. Google as a search engine was the most frequently (86%) accessible website. Although respondents reported different drug-related topics in their online searching, the search for adverse effects was the most common (68%). Respondents claimed that they could easily find (65%) and understand (49%) the drug-related information. Although a good number of respondents qualified this type of information as good, double-checking of information on other websites was highly recommended. Trustfulness was one of the important parameters to measure and 205 respondents (55%) claimed that they only trusted half of the information cited. Moreover, around 48% of respondents considered that finding the same information on more than one website increased its trustfulness. Surprisingly, 54% of respondents did not depend on Arabic information websites when making decisions on drug use. There are a high proportion of Arabic speaking people in Saudi Arabia using and consulting Arabic drug information websites. This information is easily found and understood. However, the quality and trustfulness of such websites are not high enough to depend on them. A qualified Arabic drug information website is important to meet this need.     

Building a better online formulary.

The history of and improvements made to the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) inpatient online formulary are described. The current formulary at UMHS is the third version of the Web-based formulary. The original effort in 1997 consisted of converting word-processing documents to HTML format and exporting this information to the university's intranet. There was no mechanism to search for formulary items, no therapeutic class cross-referencing, and no cost information. Documents and their conversion had to be manually maintained. The second version incorporated a series of automatic daily computer downloads from the inpatient pharmacy computer system. Web pages were built to dynamically display the formulary information from the database based on users' requests. The formulary enabled searching by brand or generic names, provided therapeutic category cross-references, listed the location of products within automated dispensing cabinets, provided accurate cost information, and was always up-to-date. Maintenance efforts drastically decreased. The current version has incorporated additional logic to meet users' needs. If no matches are found, the system expands its search by automatically linking to UMHS's inpatient pharmacy system repository of all drugs, finding matches to what the user entered, and then returning the names of therapeutically similar formulary agents to the user. A cross-index feature allows the system to return all the drugs that fall under the searched therapeutic category. Dramatic improvements have been made to UMHS's inpatient online formulary in the past two years. The current formulary provides a very low-cost, easily maintainable, and effective means to access the formulary and clinically relevant and timely information specific to each medication.     

Problems encountered in using written criteria to assess drug information responses

Problems encountered in using written criteria to evaluate drug information responses during a study designed to determine whether simple requests were being unnecessarily submitted to a drug information center are described. Drug information questions that had been answered by a drug information center from June 1985 to June 1986 using defined references were chosen for evaluation. The center's responses to the 156 questions were paired with those of senior pharmacy students, who used the same references. Two experienced drug information pharmacists used a 6-point scale to evaluate the correctness, appropriateness, and completeness of each response, as well as the amount of extraneous material it contained. Interrater agreement was acceptable with respect to appropriateness, completeness, and amount of extraneous material; it was unacceptable with respect to correctness. When the judges re-evaluated the responses by using more explicit criteria for correctness, interrater agreement improved. The analysis excluded 32 responses that the judges found difficult to evaluate. Difficulties in assessing drug information responses arose from a lack of objective evaluation criteria, the wording of the request, the scope of the reference sources used, a lack of consistency between equivalent references, evaluator bias, and incomplete documentation. Efforts to determine whether simple drug information requests were being unnecessarily submitted to the drug information center were confounded by difficulty in using written criteria to judge the quality of responses.     

微生物天然产物数据库的建立及应用

微生物天然产物数据库（microbial natural products database，MNPD）是由中国医学科学院医药生物技术研究所和创腾科技有限公司联合开发，在MDL ISIS Base化学信息管理系统上构建的综合性天然产物数据库。包括15000多个微生物天然产物的来源、制备、理化性质、二维和三维化学结构、生物活性和原始文献等信息资料，可用于微生物天然产物的信息查询、总结性检索和计算机辅助药物分子设计研究。微生物天然产物数据库是医药领域科研工作者开展药物研发及相关工作的重要工具。本文简要介绍了数据库的开发历程、组成、功能及一些应用实例。