An Indonesian experience

In Indonesia, the disciplines of drug information and clinical pharmacy are still in their infancy. Parallels can be drawn with the situation in the United Kingdom about 30 years ago prior to the establishment of a National Health Service-based hospital network of drug information centres and the advent of ward and clinical pharmacy. Pharmacists working in Indonesian hospitals are primarily involved in the supply of medicines. A cohesive national infrastructure for providing information and advice on medicines does not exist and little or no time is spent on ward and clinical pharmacy activities. As a pharmacist with drug information experience in hospital settings and now at the technical information service of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, I was invited to join a team of four British clinical pharmacists going to Indonesia. I devised and conducted a five-day intensive training course specifically covering "fundamentals in drug information". The course aimed to provide an impetus for change in the field of drug information provision in a country where access to information resources such as books and journals is severely limited by cost. In addition, I was asked to speak at a national conference promoting drug information and clinical pharmacy held in Yogyakarta.

Sadia Khan: five-day course

Donations

Prior to embarking on the visit, arrangements were made for supplying the drug information centre at the University of Surabaya with material donated by the Society's information centre and with textbooks donated by the Pharmaceutical Press.
The course was held at the university and participants included hospital, community and government-based pharmacists as well as several university lecturers. The 25 participants came from all over Indonesia and had the shared goal of wishing to gain knowledge and insight into the UK system with a view to adopting and implementing the practices in their country. The overall objective of the course was to lay the foundations for the pharmacists to act as experts in drug information provision and for them to gain the requisite knowledge and skills to train and lead others in the future in this specialty. The course was geared towards encouraging the application of theory and knowledge into everyday practice in order to promote safe, effective and rational drug use.
A combination of lectures and plenary sessions was used to coach the participants on the processes involved in handling drug-related inquiries. The specialist role of drug information pharmacists in retrieving and assessing pharmaceutical literature in order to provide evaluated, relevant, accurate and unbiased information and advice was highlighted. The merits of various pharmacy related books, journals and electronic resources were discussed and demonstrations were given of how to search and get the best results out of databases including Medline, RPS-ePIC, Micromedex and Pharm-line. Use of the internet was also demonstrated. At the end of the course the participants sat a written examination to assess the degree of knowledge attained.
I felt that the training initiative was both rewarding and worthwhile and provided me with an opportunity to share my expertise in drug information with an audience who were enthusiastic, willing and eager to learn. The lectures generated lively discussion and the course participants provided positive feedback on the benefits of having received the tuition. Throughout the week, the importance of communication and creating links between pharmacists and health care professionals was emphasised. This message was wholeheartedly taken on board and the attending pharmacists exchanged contact details with a view to sharing ideas and resources and possibly creating a national drug information forum.
The conference in Yogyakarta, attended by nearly 100 pharmacists, doctors, nurses and government officials, also stimulated much debate and helped towards highlighting the contributions that pharmacists can make to improving patient care.

Hurdle

In terms of developing drug information services in Indonesia, I feel that lack of funding for purchasing information resources will be the major hurdle to overcome. Higher education training initiatives such as those funded by the British Council should be actively supported as they are an invaluable means of disseminating the practical benefits of western pharmacy expertise in countries such as Indonesia.