Vioxx recall seen as victory for patient safety

Vioxx recall seen as victory for patient safety: "A beautiful example of pure patient safety."
That's how one doctor described the industry's response to last week's unexpected blockbuster recall of Merck's popular inflammatory drug Vioxx.
Technology-savvy physicians like Dr. Salvatore Volpe of Staten Island, New York, were able to begin notifying patients who had been prescribed the drug within hours of the first FDA recall alerts.
"I saw the announcement of the recall on television and went to CNN.com to learn more," said Volpe, who has been using Zix Corp�s e-prescribing tool, PocketScript, for about a year-and-a-half. "Because PocketScript allows you to do several kinds of reporting, I was able to create a report based on drug-dispensed records over the last two years Bing! It popped up 16 patients who had been prescribed Vioxx by me or by another doctor.� "