Published: February 2010
Publications
A new look for medicine information on the Medsafe website
Prescriber Update 31(1): 8
February 2010
Medicine information, in the form of data sheets and consumer medicine information (CMI), is freely available for healthcare professionals and consumers on the Medsafe website.
Although Medsafe checks that the medicine information published on the website reflects the information provided with the medicine application, all data sheets and CMI are prepared and maintained by the company who manufacturers the medicine. Data sheets and CMI are regularly updated with new information as it arises.
Data sheets are required for all prescription and pharmacist-only medicines approved and marketed in New Zealand. Medsafe also encourages pharmaceutical companies to provide data sheets for pharmacy-only and general sales medicines; however these are not mandatory. CMI are also not mandatory in New Zealand.
To improve the timely access to medicine information, Medsafe will now be publishing data sheets and CMI in PDF format. The software needed to read PDF documents is freely available on the internet.
Medsafe expects that all data sheets and CMI will be published in PDF format by 31 August 2010.
Healtcare professionals can access medicine information on the Medsafe website at:
www.medsafe.govt.nz/Medicines/infoSearch.asp
www.medsafe.govt.nz/Medicines/infoSearch.asp
