Hotline calling services of national drug information center in Saudi Arabia

National Drug Information Center has started providing services since January 2013; and started answering public and professional inquires through Ministry of Health Hotline Calling Services (937) since December 2013. Ten on call clinical pharmacist and expert trained pharmacist over 24/7 received calls asking about drug information, through manual documentation system of drug information inquiries. It consisted of type and qualification of caller, type of inquiries, and medications and cost avoidance of expected results of drug related problems sequel of drug information inquires if drug information services did not exist and were not answered using USA model. After 12-months of providing services, the total number of answered calls were 976 calls with 264 (27%) answered calls documented; with 300 answered drug inquires. 60% of inquiries were from the public and 40% were from professionals. The most type of inquiries were about medication identification and dose standardization, followed by drugs in pregnancy, the most medications were asked in both public and professional were antimicrobial. The average costs avoidance per each answered call received was (415.78 USD), and total estimated cost avoidance was (405.801 USD) per year. Hotline calling services of National Drug Information Center is costefficient in Saudi Arabia, it was associated with preventing drug related problems and cost savings per each receiving call. Expanding drug information services with electronic documentation excepted healthcare improvement and better care, better patient outcomes, and reduced costs.

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