Course: About Medicines Information, Section: History of Medicines Information

Many hospitals in Australia offer a Medicines Information service, usually for the purposes of supporting hospital staff and patients. Some MI services offer assistance to external health professionals and consumers.

Pharmaceutical companies usually provide a service for enquiries about their products, as this helps them to fulfill their legal pharmacovigilance and reporting obligations, however the scope of enquiries that they are able to accept may be limited.

A contact list of MI services in Australia is available on the SHPA website.

Medicines information services are mainly operated by pharmacists and their services are aimed predominantly at healthcare professionals. The first organisation dedicated to providing information about drugs and chemicals was the poison center established in Chicago, USA, in 1953. Poisons Information Centres became established throughout the world and these led to the introduction of Medicines Information Services. In Australia, the first Medicines Information Centre was established at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria in 1968. More information about the history of MI can be found in SHPA’s Medicines Information Procedure Manual.