Collaboration between a drug information center and an academic detailing program.

Purpose: The collaboration between a drug information center (DIC) and an academic detailing program is described.
Methods: An agreement was reached between the South Carolina Offering Prescribing Excellence (SCORxE) academic detailing program and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Drug Information Center (DIC) to provide responses to drug information (DI) questions pharmacists received on academic detailing visits. Questions received were analyzed to determine the impact that the collaboration had on MUSC DIC requests.
Results: From May 2009 to October 2012, the MUSC DIC answered 2727 DI questions, 62 (2.3%) of which were generated by SCORxE. Compared with DIC questions received from other sources, academic detailing questions were more likely to be therapeutic consultations, reference searches, or dosage queries and less likely to be about formulation or drug interactions. When comparing the deadline for the 62 academic detailing requests with the deadline for all other requests, the academic detailing requests allowed for a longer median time to deadline per request (21.2 days versus 27.1 hours). The majority of SCORxE questions (68%) were completed by students or residents. Benefits of the collaboration for the DIC included advanced educational opportunities for learners, increased dissemination of provided information, external funding, and scholarship opportunities. SCORxE has benefited from increased access to information and efficiency.
Conclusion: Collaboration between an academic detailing program and an academic medical center DIC has proven beneficial for both parties. Questions have been communicated by a simple and effective process and have required more research than queries received from other sources.