#2 Why we should listen to patients – Linda Härmark

As the end users of medicines, patients can provide first-hand information on side effects. The issues they report add a richness to our understanding of medicine safety that we could never achieve by relying on healthcare professionals’ reports alone – so it’s crucial that we listen to them. Linda Härmark from the Netherlands pharmacovigilance centre Lareb tells us more.

Tune in to find out:

• What patient reports reveal about people’s use of medicines
• How to make best use of the information relayed by patients
• What to consider when setting up a patient reporting system

Want to know more?

Here are a few reading resources to get you started:

• After fifteen years in the business, Lareb has lessons to share on implementing and running patient reporting systems.
• Pharmacovigilance pioneer Sten Olsson argues that patient reporting is the future of pharmacovigilance.
• Collaborating with patient organizations can help pharmacovigilance centres deliver medicine safety updates to the right audiences and understand how patients use medicines.
• Patient reports can help identify previously unrecognized side effects, like in the case of panic attacks with the contraceptive desogestrel.
• A collaborative signal detection workshop on patient reports taught Lareb and Uppsala Monitoring Centre staff some valuable lessons.
• Every year, the #MedSafetyWeek campaign raises awareness of medicine side effects and pharmacovigilance reporting systems – join in!

If you’d like to hear more from the Netherlands pharmacovigilance centre Lareb, check out this interview with Eugene van Puijenbroek on intuitive and clinical reasoning.