The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched its first mHealth app called DrugShortages. As its name says, the application enables users to quickly identify drug shortages, resolved shortages, and discontinuations of drug products. It was developed as part of FDA’s Strategic Plan for Preventing and Mitigating Drug Shortages.

“The FDA understands that health care professionals and pharmacists need real-time information about drug shortages to make treatment decisions,” said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the Drug Shortage Staff in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The new mobile app is an innovative tool that will offer easier and faster access to important drug shortage information.”

The application provides real-time information to key stakeholders, including health care practitioners and pharmacists, helping them make quick decisions about patient treatment. Users can search or browse by a drug’s generic name or active ingredient, and browse by therapeutic category. The app can also be used to report a suspected drug shortage or supply issue to the FDA; plus it has links to other resources from FDA and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The DrugShortages app is available for free on Apple’s iTunes and Google’s Play Store.