BMJ 2001;322:173 ( 20 January )

Letters

Prescription pricing databases should include more details to assess prescribing rationality

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Campbell et al's study on prescribing indicators for general practices in the United Kingdom showed how difficult it is to conduct quality assurance of prescribing by using the existing prescription pricing databases in the United Kingdom.1 The authors selected 41 proxies of rational prescribing from prescribing analysis and cost (PACT) data, the English system. Only seven of these were rated as valid for economic rationality (cost) and five for scientific rationality (quality).

This shows the impossibility of assessing prescribing rationality without knowing the diagnosis or patient identification. None of the prescription pricing databases in the United Kingdom records either of these. Yet from 1987 the American equivalent of the NHS, Medicaid, has used its database containing these data to screen monthly for two things: incompatible prescribing and inappropriate prescribing.2

Incompatible prescribing is the concurrent use of two or more drugs that have serious interactions (a common cause of the 5% . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

Prescribing indicators for UK general practice: Delphi consultation study
Stephen M Campbell, Judy A Cantrill, and Dave Roberts
BMJ 2000 321: 425-428. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Loo, K. K. (2009). Procedural Challenges in International Collaborative Research. Acad. Psychiatry 33: 229-233 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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