Browsing by Subject "multiprofessional cooperation"

Medicine information is an important part of a medicine and public health service. Medicine information it is tightly connected to many different functions of the medicine field and can be reviewed from several perspectives. Medicine counseling has been developed especially in the pharmacy sector but the development projects of medicine information which include the whole public health service have not been done before. According to the government proposal (74/2009) Finnish Medical Agency (Fimea), has created the national medicine information strategy which was published in February 2012. This study was conducted in order to gather background information for developing the national medicine information strategy. The aim of the study was to clarify the role of the medicine information producing quarters and the perceptions of co-ordination of operation as well as good practices, challenges and opportunities in medicine information. The material of the study consists of 29 interviews among key stakeholders. Interviews were conducted between March and September in 2011. Interviewees represented pharmaceutical industry, hospital and community pharmacies, authorities, patient organizations, education units and professional associations in the fields of medicine, nursing and pharmacy. Inductive content analysis with counting was used to analyze the qualitative data. The stakeholders brought out different sources of information (n=18) and examples of the successful forms and projects of cooperation (n=14) as good practices. According to the stakeholders, multi professional cooperation should be improved and increased in the medicine information field (n=19). The medicine information operation in public and hospital sector should be developed for example trough department pharmacy in hospitals (n=17). The information supply and skills of the health professionals are defective (n=16) and those could be improved by developing education (n=17). The medicine information targeted at consumers should be uniform regardless of the source and counseling should be individually tailored (n=15). The stakeholders told that they are cooperating with different quarters in medicine information field. The stakeholders reviewed medicine information strongly from their own point of view and they were not aware of what other quarters are doing. Medicine information operation needs both national and local co-ordination and by increasing and developing multi professional cooperation and networking, available resources and skills of quarters could be used more effectively. More reliable, balanced and individually tailored medicine information is needed. The base of good medicine information is a strong theory base and skills of health professionals so notice should be taken to the education so that it would meet the demands of the working life also in medicine information field. Consumers need tailored medicine information which should be uniform regardless of from which health unit it is given.