SafeTrack is an easy, quick and convenient online platform that allows patients, their friends or family, caregivers and healthcare professionals to report adverse events

• At Bayer, patient safety is the number one priority and we are committed to ensuring the safety of our current and future patients and consumers
• International Patient Safety Day is an initiative by the German Coalition for Patient Safety which aims to raise public awareness of the key issues relating to patient safety

MUMBAI, INDIA, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 (GPN) – Today, on International Patient Safety Day, Bayer’s Pharmaceutical division in India ( Bayer Zydus Pharma),  announced the launch of SafeTrack, a quick, simple and convenient adverse event reporting tool for the public. International Patient Safety Day is an initiative by the German Coalition for Patient Safety, and calls for all stakeholders in health care systems to work together to improve patient safety.¹ As a leading pharmaceutical company, patient safety is one of Bayer’s core values, and the launch of SafeTrack demonstrates Bayer’s commitment to ensuring the safety of current and future patients and consumers.

An aging population is driving an increase in chronic diseases and as a result, a healthcare burden in many countries around the world.² This burden is further exacerbated by poor health literacy – a person’s ability to obtain, communicate, process and understand basic health information.³Low health literacy can lead to serious consequences for the individual such as medication errors, avoidable health threats and poor medication adherence,⁴ but also to wider society as those with low health literacy cost healthcare systems up to 21% more than patients who are highly engaged in their care.⁵ By improving elements such as health literacy, adherence can be improved resulting in enhanced treatment effectiveness and patient safety.⁶

Consequently, Bayer is committed to advancing health literacy as patients who are actively engaged in their own healthcare are more likely to stay healthy and manage their conditions. Bayer staff, healthcare professionals and the public of all ages play a key role in ensuring the optimal use of medicines around the world.

Mr. Manoj Saxena, Managing Director Bayer Zydus Pharma said, “ At Bayer, our pharmacovigilance teams work to study patterns of side effects and collect the necessary information to analyze and understand them. Once assessed, measures are developed to prevent, or at least minimize, such side effects of the drug in the future. It is important that patients, their relatives or HCP’s are aware of this practice and timely report the adverse events of a drug.  We hope that the launch of SafeTrack makes it quick, easy and convenient to report adverse events digitally back to us to help improve patient safety.”

Michael Levy, Global Head of Pharmacovigilance said, “At Bayer, patient safety and well-being are our highest priority. We take great pride in always putting our patients first. It is the essence of our business and it is more than just an obligation. It is our commitment to deliver high quality prescription and non-prescription medicines,” said Michael Levy, Global Head of Pharmacovigilance at Bayer. “We are committed to improving the patient experience through the safe and appropriate use of our medicines. Therefore, our Pharmacovigilance colleagues work diligently at every stage of the product lifecycle to ensure that the benefits of our products outweigh the risks.”

Throughout the years, Bayer has developed an array of tools and platforms for patient safety – work is currently being undertaken to implement an artificial intelligence- based solution to augment drug safety data management. The aim is to increase efficiency to tackle the growing volume of received adverse event reports. The system helps to extract necessary data and classify it accordingly, improving patient safety through the identification of adverse drug reactions.

Bayer’s new web-based tool, SafeTrack allows for the easy, quick and convenient reporting of adverse events. The tool balances the need to capture comprehensive data against ease and speed of use and is available in eight different languages. Clickhere (www.safetrack-public.bayer.com) to access SafeTrack now. ENDS