A national, one-day, consumer-oriented telephone drug information project in Australia

Abstract

Abstract The design and execution of a nationwide, one-day telephone drug information service for the general public are described and data collected during the project analysed. The Australian public was provided with access to a toll-free telephone service on September 4, 1992, for seeking direct information about medication from a team of pharmacists and medical practitioners based at a temporary telecommunications centre in Melbourne. Details of the project had been agreed by a multidisciplinary steering group. Over 2,000 calls were connected to the centre, averaging 167 calls per hour (range nine to 215). Calls were processed through central triage lines prior to referral to appropriate personnel. Information was gathered from 1,650 calls using a standard data collection form, and the details of a sample of 895 of these were analysed using Epi-info 5.01a (public domain) software for epidemiology and disease surveillance. The success of this project, as well as that of other similar telephone information services in other countries, indicates a high level of interest among the public. In the future, information gained in this type of data collection process may be of benefit to clinicians in assisting them to provide information to patients about their drug therapy.