The National Pharmaceutical Association is to relaunch the NPAnet extranet service for NPA members on September 4.
The association announced on August 25 that a new look home page would contain a daily pharmacy news service, articles by NPA executives on pharmacy issues, diary date reminders and drug alerts. Elsewhere on the site, members would be able to use a product catalogue to place online orders for NPA products. Such orders would attract a 2.5 per cent discount until the end of the year.
Other services to be available on NPAnet include: summaries of the latest position on pharmacy issues; downloadable information leaflets and standard forms; product listings, including details of special containers, sugar/colourant content of medicines, diluents and insulin pens/needles; details of NPA board members, member services and staff contacts; and travel health information.
In addition, NPAnet users will have access to pharmacy business intelligence from the Intrapharm network. This includes pharmaceutical company share prices, automatic patient medication record system updates and Intrapharm chat forums.
Mr John D'Arcy (director, NPA) commented: "This is very much a first stage in the site's development and we will be adding new features and more on-line services over the coming months."
He added that these would include online access to the NPA information department's database by the end of the year and a personnel/employment advice section.