Guidelines for Too Many Meds Drug Monographs

Goal: Provide information for the consumer that is not biased in favor or against the particular drug therapy being reviewed.
Whenever possible, provide real numbers, not value judgments. For example: Simvastatin decreases heart attack risk from 20% in four years to 12% in four years for high risk patients as secondary prophylaxis, rather than simvastatin lowers heart attacks a lot.
Very light humor is encouraged, biting sarcasm is not.

Practical stuff:

A Microsoft Word review should calculate a reading level of 6th to 8th grade.
Emphasize the information that would help their decision making. So you don’t have to include every side effect ever listed, but the common and the very serious ones should be included.
Cost should not be actual dollar amounts, since I don’t want to keep it up weekly. But make the most accurate general statement you can.

As a prototype, be sure to look at the Atorvastatin monograph.

Download the Template Below: You should fill out the yellow boxes ONLY . The template will write the HTML code for you so it will look like the other monographs on the site. [wpfilebase tag=”file” id=3 /]

Scores:	For the effect, side effect and cost score be sure to follow the link to the rating scale to help you assign the appropriate score for each
What is it?	What the drug is in laymans terms  (warfarin is a blood thinner)
What’s In It For Me?	why would the person want to take this drug?
The Good	The concrete , measurable things that make this drug a good choice, (it will decrease your risk of stroke from 5% per year to 2 % per year)
The Bad	Adverse effects or other negatives
The Controversial	Not all drugs will have something in this section: (
Fact Boxes
For the Cynic
The cost	Not in actual dollar amounts
Bottom Line	Short and to the point, what do you recommend concerning use of this drug