Pfizer launched a medication safety site, garnering the company praise from patient safety advocates.

Unveiled on Sept. 15, the site is designed to give healthcare professionals, medical students, patients, patient advocates and the general public information about medicine safety as well as ammunition to help them make decisions about appropriate treatment options.

“It’s great to see a pharmaceutical company supporting consumer medication safety,” said Michael Cohen, RPh, president of the Institute For Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). ISMP, which is launching its own consumer medication safety website this fall, has been publishing a consumer magazine, Safe Medicine, since 2003 where more than 200 articles on medication safety topics have been published.

The site, at Pfizer.com/medicinesafety, uses illustrations and interactive tools to educate users about medicine safety. For instance, patients can locate information about medicine safety education and get help in formulating questions on how to better prepare for a doctor’s visit or how to read a medicine label properly. Pfizer claims that this is the first pharmaceutical industry website to prominently feature a link for reporting side effects from all medical products regulated by the FDA via its MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.

Visitors to the site can navigate through various links where they can get information about the risks of medications, report side effects, look up information about specific medicines and download guides on medicine safety for children and seniors.