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Welcome to the 7th issue of the Clinicians Health Channel Newsletter.

In this issue:

Emergency and Life Saving Medicines Register

VicTag

A link to the Victorian Therapeutics Advisory Group (VicTAG) Register of Emergency and Life Saving Medicines has been added to ‘Toxicology, Toxinology and Poisoning’ section of the Clinicians Health Channel.

The Register is maintained and updated by staff from the Victorian Poisons Information Centre (VPIC) on behalf of VicTAG. VPIC staff periodically updates the stock data returned by individual hospitals and perform an annual review of the antidote indications, dosing recommendations etc. They seek advice from the VPIC Medical Director to answer any questions that arise during the annual update.

The Register exists to aid access to certain medicines in times of emergency and to provide information on the use of antidotes and antivenoms, and a small number of other medicines, to Victorian hospitals. Some of the medicines are rarely used, of high cost or difficult to obtain quickly.

The Index page contains a list of the medicines and a list of all hospitals included in the Register. There are hyperlinks between medicine names and a worksheet page that lists hospitals that stock that medicine, and the quantity stocked. There are hyperlinks between hospital names and a worksheet page that lists each medicine and the quantity stocked at that hospital.

The second worksheet page consists of:

  • A list of antidotes and antivenoms
  • Indications for use
  • Guide for initial dosage for an adult
  • Quantity required treating a 70kg adult for 24 hours
  • Whether or not a toxicologist should be contacted for advice
  • Any other comments

How quickly that medicine may be required (colour coded), i.e. immediately; available within one hour; either not time critical or used infrequently; not routinely recommended or not available in Australia.

The third worksheet page consists of a list of miscellaneous medicines that are not antidotes or antivenoms that hospitals may need to access quickly. They may be high cost or highly specialized. Requests for additions to this list are expected to come from sources external to the Toxicology community.

In October each year, each medicine’s indications, initial dosing recommendations and supplier details are checked. An email is sent to all Victorian Hospitals asking them to check and update their stock listings of all the medicines in the Register. Any changes to the stock quantities are changed on the relevant Register worksheets. The updated worksheets are emailed to the VicTAG Professional Officer, who replaces the current spreadsheet on the VicTAG website. In addition the Register may be updated as necessary following publication of any new relevant information, e.g. new dosing recommendations.

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Better Health Channel

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Established in 1999 and funded by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, the Better Health Channel is a trusted source of health and medical information for over 40 million users each year. Every piece of information is developed with leading health professionals in Australia and written in language easy to understand. Regularly reviewed to keep the information up to date, it has been a reliable source for clinicians when supporting their patients to understand their health conditions and to make healthy living choices.

URL: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/

Interested in becoming a content partner with the Better Health Channel?

Contact: Ling Krah, Partners Engagement Lead  ling.krah@dhhs.vic.gov.au

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Health Translations Directory

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Also funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Translations Directory is an online portal which provides direct links to around 14,000 reliable translated health resources in over 100 languages produced in Australia. It enables health practitioners and those working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities to easily find translated health information.

URL: http://healthtranslations.vic.gov.au/

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Resource Updates

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The eTG complete has recently revised Neurology topics. These include seizures and epilepsy, headache, idiopathic hyper somnolence, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, immune-mediated myopathies, restless legs syndrome, stroke and transient ischaemic attack, and dizziness and vertigo. New tables cover key types of headache, how to convert an antiparkinson drug dose from oral to transdermal, and drugs to avoid or use with caution in myasthenia gravis. New simple graphic illustrations give instructions for performing the Epley and Semont manoeuvres and the Brandt-Daroff exercises.

Read more>>

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Pharmacovigilance Searching on Embase

Elsevier

Embase The publisher has recently introduced a new PV Wizard search form on their platform. The PV search form enables users to build structured, comprehensive pharmacovigilance and literature monitoring search queries in an easy and fast manner.

Embase provides number of ways for searching: Quick, PICO, PV Wizard, Advanced, Drug, Disease, Device, Article and Authors

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PV Wizard search form includes 5 key elements: drug name, alternative drug names, adverse drug reactions, special conditions and human limits.

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For more information about the PV Wizard search form, please click the following links:

Guide to using new PV Wizard search form: download here.

Recorded Webinar: Best practices for pharmacovigilance and literature monitoring (including PV Wizard demo): watch here

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