Patient safety education for undergraduate medical students

The authors of an article published in BMC Medical Education conducted a survey of the medical literature related to patient safety education in the medical curriculum of medical schools.


The article notes that there are only a few relevant published studies on the inclusion of patient safety education in the undergraduate curriculum in medical schools either as a selective course, a lecture program, or by being integrated into the existing curriculum.  The search included developed countries with advanced health and education systems. 


It is clear that the integration of patient safety education into the existing curriculum in medical schools internationally, provides significant challenges and needs.

Outsourcing Pharmacovigilance

Not long ago many within Pharma thought that Drug Safety was an evil, unnecessary cost center. Over time the perception has changed and it's now recognized that Pharmacovigilance is an important function which is essential to protect the patient, public and product. Nevertheless, budget restraints and the rising costs of maintaining a professional workforce have led many across the industry to consider outsourcing. There's yet another reason for outsourcing: The shear volume of data coming in which needs to be collected at call centers, entered into databases, queried, cleaned, analyzed and reported makes this a task that must be shared round the clock and globe.