Abstract: The key drug monitoring is a new task introduced by the approach of adverse drug reaction reporting and monitoring revised in 2011. As of now, the approach has been implemented for more than four years. Experience in the key drug monitoring has been accumulated. The article, in the point of technical supervision view, tries to re-examine the meaning and content of the key drug monitoring, summarizes the methods as well as its advantages and disadvantages, combings the existing problems, and provides ideas in order to promote the work to carry out in deep and effective way.

Key words: adverse drug reaction monitoring, active monitoring, key drug monitoring