European Medicines Agency: Workshop on Information about Medicines

The Patient and Consumer Working Party (PCWP) and the Healthcare Professionals Working Party (HCPWP) convened for a joint meeting at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on 8-9 March. The first day consisted in a workshop on communication and information about medicines.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an important and trusted provider of information about medicines to the patient communities. In a fast changing communication environment, the agency needs to adapt to ensure that its information is easy to find and lay-friendly, and that its electronic interfaces are both intuitive and easy to navigate. The EMA has already been taking many steps in this direction, including the recent launch of a webpage dedicated to patients and consumers.

The workshop gave the audience the opportunity to get acquainted with the results of recent information-related surveys from the EMA. The meeting also featured interactive group sessions exploring the challenges and opportunities for providers of information about medicines; how information is disseminated from the EMA to patients and healthcare professionals, and the role of the different actors in channelling the information. Finally, the participants reflected on the issues still obstructing the proper use of information on medicines to support care decisions by patients and professionals.

The agenda of the event is available on the EMA website and the agency will make available a video recording of the entire event in due course.

The second day of this joint meeting between patients and healthcare professionals was dedicated to regular activities, including intermediate reports from the sub-groups on training, social media, visibility and impact of patients’ involvement at EMA; updates from the work of the scientific committees; and members’ updates on their activities.

The agenda can be found here and all documents will be made available in due course.

For any questions regarding EPF’s involvement at the EMA or for more information about this event, please contact policy@EU-patient.eu