One Million Americans Now Receive Personalized FDA Drug Safety Alerts
Through iGuard.org
PRINCETON, N.J. (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) December 30, 2008 --
Today, iGuard.org,
a free and secure medication monitoring service, registered its
one-millionth member just 14 months after its launch last year.
iGuard.org’s rapid growth highlights the growing trend toward patients
taking a more active role in managing their own healthcare.
Helping Patients and Physicians
“Despite enormous investment of time and money in healthcare information
technology, patients don’t feel confident that the healthcare system is
watching out for them,” said Hugo Stephenson, MD, iGuard.org’s founder.
“iGuard.org is a really simple service. With most Americans getting
their prescriptions from many different doctors, iGuard.org enables
patients to register their medications for monitoring and sends them
customized email drug safety
reports, safety
alerts and recalls from a pharmacist as new and personally relevant
information emerges.”
Barbara Munroe of Phoenix, Ariz. is an iGuard.org member who has
epilepsy and takes numerous medications. "After wasting away for a year
with no energy, I registered all my medicines on iGuard.org,” said
Munroe. ”To my surprise, I soon received an alert about an interaction
between Paxil and another medication I’m taking, Zonegran. Since
deleting Paxil from my medications my energy has soared. Without
iGuard.org's information, I would still be on the couch -- or worse. It
has saved my life.”
The iGuard.org Service
iGuard.org maintains an up-to-date database of drug-drug and
drug-disease interactions, including feeds from the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and major drug manufacturers, to
provide users with personalized drug safety reports, safety alerts and
product recalls by email. Since iGuard.org pharmacists write and review
all alerts for a consumer audience, patients receive understandable,
actionable, timely information that they can discuss with their doctors.
Paul
Seligman, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director for Safety Policy and
Communication at the FDA, said, "Communicating safety information in a
timely fashion is important to all those who weigh the benefits and
risks about the appropriate use of a medicine. Providing this
information is a shared responsibility of many in the healthcare system.
iGuard.org now provides such a source for this information."
iGuard.org is Different from Other Drug Information Services
Although patients today have access to an enormous set of tools for
getting information about their health, iGuard.org is the only service
that:
-
helps patients identify which drugs pose the greatest risk using a
personalized, color-coded, drug safety rating system;
-
detects potential interactions between drugs and diseases as well as
interactions between drugs – recognizing that drug-disease
interactions (e.g., Viagra and heart disease, birth control pills and
smoking) are the highest cause of death and disability associated with
medication use;
-
communicates emerging product recalls (which outnumber alerts by four
to one) as well as safety notifications and FDA advisories;
-
avoids bombarding patients with irrelevant communications by ensuring
that drug-specific messages are sent only to those users to whom they
apply;
-
ensures that communications are actionable and easy to understand by
having a pharmacist review and update FDA / drug company alerts for
the consumer audience;
-
allows patients to have their doctor copied on their communications;
-
is funded by medical research, not by advertising, which helps improve
medicines.
Helping the Scientific Community
iGuard.org connects patients with researchers interested in learning
more about how drugs work. iGuard has already helped researchers to
document real world rates of side effects for common medications such as
statins and antidepressants, and to discover potential interactions
between prescription and over-the-counter medications. "Connecting real
patients in the real world with drug researchers allows us to learn
about medicines much faster," Dr. Stephenson said.
About iGuard.org
iGuard.org, headquartered in Princeton, N.J., is a free and secure
source of information for registered users who want to get informed,
stay informed and share
feedback about their medications. It has received critical support
from patient advocacy groups concerned by the large number of patients
affected by serious, preventable adverse drug interactions. It offers
balanced and timely information to help patients manage their healthcare
for themselves or loved ones.
Registration is free online at iGuard.org,
or through its partners including the Institute for Safe Medication
Practices (www.consumermedsafety.org),
participating e-prescribing physicians (www.allscripts.com)
and select pharmacies.
See the original story at: http://eon.businesswire.com/releases/drug_safety/safety_alerts/prweb1807844.htm
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