Adverse drug reaction reports; their storage and retrieval

There is a statutory obligation for pharmaceutical companies to record reports of adverse reactions to their drugs. The storage and retrieval of these reports, within an operating post‐coordinate information retrieval system poses a number of problems due to their multidimensional nature. The use of links and roles to solve this problem is proscribed on economic grounds and so a system, currently being developed, is described using ‘generic role indicators’ as a primary device for preventing false drops followed by a rapid visual sort using an intermediate file on cards. Considerable time savings have been achieved by the unification of retrieval sources.