[Therapeutic consultation: information oriented to clinical problems].

Therapeutical information is progressively becoming more abundant, difficult to cope with and in most cases it consists on the description of drugs rather than focusing on practical problems. In medical practice, however, we are presented with multiple complex therapeutical problems and he should be able to obtain reliable information oriented to the resolution of particular clinical situations. This is practically impossible to achieve with the currently available sources. In this paper we describe a service of therapeutic consultations created with the aim of covering this need of the health care system and as a complement of other therapeutical information. This service receives consultations from different hospitals and elaborates individualized solutions. The system is computerized so that the various solutions are kept in a data base from which the information can be easily retrieved using key words. During its first four years, 525 consults regarding the following matters have been answered: selection of therapeutic strategies (29.7%), diagnosis, attitude and prognosis of adverse reactions (28.4%), documentation (11.4%), use of drugs during pregnancy (11.2%), available preparations, bibliography, interactions, pharmacokinetic, breast feeding and others. The number of consultations has increased up to date. This new service, which can be coordinated by means of a computerized data base network, participating several centers, offers a quick, reliable, direct, and individualized information oriented to particular therapeutical problems at a relatively low cost.