David Holness

Our Daily Med: Adopting Pharmaceutical Paperless Labeling David Holness

In 1999, a proposal was submitted to the FDA by the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America, (PhRMA) to replace the professional prescribing information enclosed with the drug, a.k.a. the paper package insert, with an electronic version of the information. The innovation was intended to improve the timeliness and accuracy of FDA approved prescription drug information for patients, doctors, pharmacists, and hospitals. The innovation was expected to eliminate much of the material costs associated with production, storage and distribution of printed package inserts. The proposal was adopted by the FDA and in November 2005 the first of the electronic prescription drug labels was entered into a database accessible by the public. The website is called Dailymed and today contains drug information for close to 5000 prescription drugs. The website can be accessed at: http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/about.cfm.