The World Health Organization (WHO) defines pharmacovigilance as "the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problems".
Pharmacovigilance has risen in prominence with growing attention paid to the potential for adverse health effects arising from the use of pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic products. Recent and proposed changes to legislation have increased the demand for the capacity to adequately monitor for potential adverse effects after products are in the marketplace. Given the limits of passive, patient-reported surveillance, there is increasing interest in the recognized benefits of active surveillance of electronic medical data.
RSI has been working to develop active surveillance systems, in partnership with Cerner Corporation and the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences. Cerner Corporation is a leading supplier of healthcare information technology solutions and manages a vast resource (terabytes) of continuously updated clinical data, the HealthFacts™ data warehouse. The Hamner Institutes (formerly known as CIIT and based in Research Triangle Park) provide extensive expertise and laboratory-based knowledge generation capacity in toxicology and pharmacology.
Cerner Corporation: www.cerner.com
Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences: www.thehamner.org