MIMS News

:: MIMS on PDA for Windows Mobile 5 devices (December 2005)

MIMS on PDA is now available on Windows Mobile 5 devices. Download your copy by clicking "MIMS on PDA" on the side menu

:: Launch of MIMS PILs (October 2005)

Patient Information Leaflets

When it comes to patient education, less is definitely more. MIMS PILs provides you with 400 concise non-brand patient information leaflets on common Australian and New Zealand medicines.

The PILs Sheets are designed for use as a handout after patient counselling and can be understood by most people. They are developed following research by hospital pharmacists, and feedback from patients, and are designed to answer questions most frequently asked by patients about their medication.

:: It's time for a bit of a laugh (May 2005)

Here at MIMS we know that winter for hospital health professionals can be a pretty grim time of year. A perfect time therefore to launch our new MIMS Moments marketing campaign, aimed at poking a little gentle fun at ourselves, our users and life in New Zealand. With a series of saucy images and provocative comments, this is advertising for a medicines resource like you have never seen before! It is rolling out from the beginning of June in Pharmacy Today and New Zealand Doctor newspapers, as well as the MIMS New Ethicals catalogue.

:: MIMS on Pocket PC (May 2005)

Users of MIMS on Pocket PC can now access their local DHB medicines list. Click on the "Pack" tab to access this information. The formulary is included as an abbreviation in green text (for a list of MIMS abbreviations consult the front of the MIMS New Ethicals catalogue). The MIMS New Ethicals book will be delivered towards the end of May.

User training in two different DHBs indicate that there is low awareness of the blue formulary (PML) flags in this resource. You can help to address this by ensuring that key medical and nursing staff have been made aware of this information, as well as ringing Paul or myself to organise a MIMS user-training day soon.

:: MIMS Patient Information Leaflets (May 2005)

MIMS and the team at the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at Canterbury District Health Board are putting the finishing touches on the new MIMS Patient Information Leaflets. This resource will include 440 one-page generic medicine leaflets. Suitable for printing out in a busy hospital ward, the leaflets can be used to enhance patient counselling by the pharmacist, nurse or doctor. The entire resource has been recently reviewed and will be continually maintained by the writers at Canterbury in a new content management system built by the MIMS team. MIMS will sell and provide user support and training for the product in New Zealand. Please contact me if you are interested in undertaking a free trial of this product when it is released.

:: MIMS Training (May 2005)

Dates are fast being booked for MIMS training. The first three training days at Invercargill, Dunedin and Whangarei were very successful, with at least 80 clinicians attending throughout the day. The training focuses on the basics: how to find and use MIMS Online; how to make the most of MIMS New Ethicals; and how to access MIMS on PDA. It is also an opportunity for those who are more sophisticated PDA users to explore the option of moving to a phone/PDA or to using MIMS in clinical management software.

:: MIMS staff - the league of nations (Feb 2005)

The MIMS NZ editorial team has welcomed another pharmacist/editor Erica Morgan from Canada, who joins Valerie Hoa (from Singapore) and Elizabeth Donohoo (who is Australian). We are also lucky to have Bryan Tan from Singapore (originally) and Helen Gealy from Wales working on the MIMS SafeAlert interaction databases. Jim, our user support extraordinaire, arrived in NZ from Taiwan as a nine year old, and completed a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Auckland. The MIMS Australian team also welcomes another gobal traveller to their team. Anna McElerney, from England, is the new deputy editor. Anna has worked in Auckland for the past four years as both a pharmacist and medical writer. She has also completed a Diploma in Public Health at Auckland University.

:: Section 29 stuff (Feb 2005)

MIMS hospital users will remembers that MOH asked us to remove the Section 29 medicines from MIMS New Ethicals. Thank you to those who sent in comments on this issue, which we collated and sent with our response to the Ministry some months ago. We have removed the Section 29 information from the book while we await their response to our communication. This information is still available in the other MIMS channels.

:: MIMS New Ethicals books (Feb 2005)

You may have spotted that we have added some therapeutic guidelines to MIMS New Ethicals. We have also added some overviews to selected therapeutic classes to assist prescribing (see page 21 of the Nov edition for an example).

:: MIMS now owned by United Business Media (Feb 2005)

MediMedia, the previous owners of MIMS, is now UBM Medica, a wholly-owned subsidary of UBM, a British-based publishing company whose stable of publications includes both Pulse and Practitioner, leading titles for GPs in England. The UBM website is www.unitedbusinessmedia.co.uk

UBM Medica owns medicine and decision support databases, as well as electronic and print medicine reference products throughout Europe and Asia, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.