CONSUMER HEALTH INFORMATION CORPORATION
MARKS 16 YEARS OF EFFECTIVE PATIENT EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Dr. Dorothy Smith, President and founder of Consumer Health Information Corporation, in McLean, Virginia, celebrates 16 years of service specializing in the development of pharmaceutical patient education programs and publications. An internationally recognized pharmacist, author and patient education consultant, Smith has experience in almost every area of patient education including 20 years counseling patients about medication.

Early in her career, recognizing the need to communicate information about drug treatments to the consumer, Smith published her first book. Twenty books and multitudes of publications later, the company has grown to a business that supports some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Born in Regina, Canada, Smith received her pharmacy B.S. from the University of Saskatchewan and her Pharm.D. from the University of Cincinnati. In the early 1970s, reference books were not available that translated medical terminology on prescription drugs into language that patients could understand. "I decided to prepare a series of 'crib notes' that I used during counseling sessions. A physician, observing what I was doing, suggested that I publish my notes so other doctors and pharmacists could use them to counsel their patients," says Smith.

Smith spent the next seven years working on a patient information compendium on all prescription drugs used by ambulatory patients in Canada and the U.S. Medical Guide for Patient Counseling was published in 1977. The book was widely circulated, went into two editions and won first prize at the Philadelphia Book Show. Her second book, Family Guide to Prescription Drugs, sold 350,000 copies in three years and went into three editions.

Smith was one of the first pharmacists to teach patient education in a pharmacy school. She was appointed associate professor of community medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, where she teaches patient education and therapeutics to medical residents.

The staff of Consumer Health Information Corporation has the expertise to both write and design patient information. A team of physicians, pharmacists and designers cooperate in the development of each project. The company creates patient education material for pharmacies, medical offices, pharmaceutical companies, corporate wellness programs covering topics as prescription and OTC drugs as well as home diagnostic test kits. Smith also conducts patient education seminars for pharmacists, physicians and nurses.

"As health care increasingly focuses on ambulatory medicine to contain costs, patient drug therapy will only be cost-effective when patients learn how to manage their medication at home. Patient education is becoming the competitive edge in a changing healthcare environment," believes Smith.