A quality assurance audit of a drug information service

The objectives of this study were to assess the quality of written responses provided by the Drug Information (DI) Service at The Hospital for Sick Children (HSC). A preliminary survey was circulated to 89 Canadian hospitals in December 1986 to guide us in developing this quality assurance audit. Of the 27 hospitals responding to this survey, 19 had formal DI centres. It was decided to perform our audit by means of a user satisfaction survey and a committee review of written DI responses. Fifty-six DI user surveys were distributed; 25 completed surveys were returned. Completeness of response was rated the highest (9.5 out of 10) by the respondents while the impact of the information provided on patient therapy was rated the lowest (8.3 out of 10). Sixty-three DI responses were to be reviewed by a committee which consisted of the Director, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, the Chief Medical Resident, and two pharmacists. Criteria to be examined included literature correlation/condensation, data documentation, literature evaluation, conclusions, references, organization, terminology and sentence structure. These criteria were all rated at greater than 90 percent compliance by the chief medical residents and pharmacists. Both the user survey and committee review led to the conclusion that our DI Service exhibits a high level of quality in its written responses to DI requests.