An Information Technology Architecture for Drug Effectiveness Reporting and Post-Marketing Surveillance

Adverse drug events impose a large cost on the society in terms of lives and health care costs. In this article, we propose an information technology architecture for enabling the monitoring of adverse drug events in an outpatient setting as a part of the post marketing surveillance program. The proposed system architecture enables the development of a Web-based drug effectiveness reporting and monitoring system that builds on previous studies demonstrating the feasibility of a system in which community pharmacists identify and report adverse drug events. We define the key technical requirements of such a monitoring and reporting system, identify the critical factors that influence the successful implementation and use of the system, and propose information technology solutions that satisfy these requirements.