Employing the Sentinel

US government has employed the use of a computerized system to track the safety of drugs and devices. Dubbed as the Sentinel, the program will be used by the Food and Drug Administration to help them identify the dangers of prescription drugs and medical devices that are already in the market.

The key is, everyone will have a say when this goes public. The normal way of reporting to the FDA is only through the manufacturers. When the system goes live, there will be a database that can handle user input. This just means that patients, physicians and other individuals will be able to voice out their needs easily. This will give FDA the chance to learn things that will eventually lead to new warnings that they may have to dish out to the public.

It is still not certain as to how long it will take them to set up the system. I just hope that it would not take long because there are indeed a lot of drugs circulating in the market that have very serious side effects.