Australian Medicines Handbook

The Australian Medicines Handbook or AMH is a medical reference text commonly used in practice by health professionals (particularly general practitioners and pharmacists) in Australia. It is a highly-regarded source of concise, independent drug information to aid in the practice of evidence-based medicine. The AMH is largely based on the model of the British National Formulary (BNF) but contains completely Australian content.

The AMH is published by an independent company – Australian Medicines Handbook Pty Ltd, based in Adelaide, South Australia.

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Structure

The AMH contains three main types of information:

• drug monographs - relevant information about individual drugs by drug name (e.g. enalapril)
• class statements - relevant information about classes of drugs (e.g. ACE inhibitors)
• therapeutic considerations - relevant information about disease management and treatment selection (e.g. heart failure)

History

The idea of such a text was first proposed in 1991 and became a collaboration between the Australian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT), the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). These three organisations continue to sponsor the production of the AMH.

After seven years of development, and with the aid of a Commonwealth grant, the first edition was published in May 1998. It was initially published every two years (1998, 2000 and 2002 editions), but has been published on an annual basis since 2002.

Publication formats

The current print edition, the eighth published, is the Australian Medicines Handbook 2007 (released January 2007). The AMH is also available in an electronic format, known as eAMH, for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms on CD-ROM and online through the Health Communication Network. A version for personal digital assistants (PDAs), known as pAMH, is available for devices based on the Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) platform.

Australian Medicines Handbook also publish two companion texts: AMH Drug Choice Companion: Emergency and Primary Care and AMH Drug Choice Companion: Aged Care, which deal with pharmacotherapeutics in these specialised areas.

Past editions

• Misan GM (Ed.) (1998). Australian Medicines Handbook. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-646-35326-8
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2000). Australian Medicines Handbook (2 ed.). Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-646-38303-5
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2002). Australian Medicines Handbook 2002. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-1-8
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2003). Australian Medicines Handbook 2003. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-2-6
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2004). Australian Medicines Handbook 2004. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-4-2
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2005). Australian Medicines Handbook 2005. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9578521-9-3
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2006). Australian Medicines Handbook 2006. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9757919-2-3
• Rossi S (Ed.) (2007). Australian Medicines Handbook 2007. Adelaide: Australian Medicines Handbook. ISBN 0-9757919-5-8

See also

• Australian Drug Evaluation Committee
• National Drug Code System
• National pharmaceuticals policy

Further information

• Australian Medicines Handbook website