Surveillance of Drug Therapy

Abstract

Early last year the state of the art of adverse drug reaction reporting was assessed inThe Journal,1found severely wanting, and suggestions voiced for its improvement. In this issue, the two communications by Jick, Slone, and associates from the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Boston, report two of the early fruits of a carefully conceived in-hospital drug surveillance program. This is a study of considerable depth and sophistication. It employs full-time paramedical personnel and insists on putting into the computer complete data on all drugs received by patients, as well as much potentially meaningful clinical data, all of which seems adequately and carefully monitored and validated under close nursing and medical supervision. The profile data covers many significant features in each patient, including genetic markers, such as the ABO, MNSs, and other blood groups, when available. By this means, a data bank has resulted which is continually expanding and which