New Alert System for Devices and Drugs Forthcoming
The American Medical Association (AMA) described a new system that will provide clinicians about urgent notifications related to drugs and devices available on the market. The Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) will be funded by pharmaceutical and device makers and Medem will oversee system operations.
The system will be free to clinicians who choose to participate. Already more than 100,000 clinicians have signed up for the notification system. The system will transmit emails to clinicians, on average once or twice a month, which are accessible with any device that is internet capable. Information will be geared to the physician’s area of specialty.
The system will enable sharing of critical information with clinicians rapidly. Letters from manufacturers can sometimes take up to four weeks to transmit and require approval from the FDA before they are sent. The notifications are called “patient safety issues”.
The new system has been endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration, physician specialty groups, device and drug makers, liability insurers, and the AMA. All these groups are working to promote the system prior to its launch. It is anticipated that the system will be launched in July of this year.
A previous effort launched by the FDA, MedWatch, commenced in 1993. One of the limitations of that system is that few physicians appreciate that effort or use that system. Many physicians feel overwhelmed by the information contained in MedWatch, only little of which relates to a given specialty. At this point, only 90,000 people are signed up for the system.
June 23, 2008 Related topics: Trends, Partnerships & Consortia, Quality, Safety, Errors