$8.8m to develop online medicines reference

Some $8.8 million would be spent on developing and maintaining a national electronic medicines reference list, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said today.

The implementation of a national medicines formulary was an initiative identified in the medicines strategy released earlier.

Mr Dunne said $8.8m over four years would be spent on the formulary, which would provide prescribers with up-to-date information about the use of medicines.

It would include information about guidelines and alerts, dosage, adverse reactions and whether the medicine was listed on the pharmaceutical schedule.

The information would be available online.

- NZPA