Targeted MedWatch Safety Alert PilotPilot targeted safety messages with at least one medical specialty group. The Pilot is the first step to targeting MedWatch safety information to health professionals, which will increase the utility and readership of safety messages, leading to the safe use of medical products.OSHI piloted targeting MedWatch Safety Alerts (MWSA) with four health professional organizations for a period of six months. A total of 90 MWSAs were issued. There were a total of 38 testers; half received all of the alerts and the other half received alerts relevant to their medical specialty only. Results revealed that MedWatch staff members were able to target MWSAs appropriately for 83 percent of the alerts. The majority of testers completing the pilot indicated a preference for targeted MWSAs; however, due to the small sample of testers, more information is needed to determine if their preference is representative of the 173,000 subscribers of the MWSA e-list who routinely receive MWSAs. OSHI continues to assess MWSA e-list subscribers' preferences concerning targeted MWSAs by including a question about it on our customer satisfaction survey.
A. Develop options paper2/1/2009Completed2/1/2009B. Create project plan9/1/2009Completed9/1/2009C. Identify pilot organizations and testers10/31/2009Completed11/17/2009D. Set up targeted subscription for pilot testers with GovDelivery11/1/2009Completed11/20/2009E. Launch Pilot11/1/2009Completed12/1/2009F. Create evaluation tools4/30/2010Completed4/28/2010G. Evaluate information from Pilot5/21/2010Completed5/27/2010H. Finalize report9/30/2010Completed9/8/2010