Widely-used facility-based indicators of appropriate and inappropriate medicines use in LMIC [ 9] could be adapted for use with insurance claims data and expanded to assess medicines use and expenditures for specific conditions.
And they defend their involvement with specialty drugs, saying it helps them keep better track of the medicines' use.
Other experts said that the findings underscored the need for better guidelines on the medicines' use as the treatment effort gears up.
Improvements were seen in the majority of services evaluated: stop smoking, emergency hormonal contraception, minor ailments, alcohol awareness, weight management, medicines use reviews, new medicines service, substance misuse and a medication dispenser system.
This service is promoted on the basis of the importance of safe and timely supply of medicines, and the level of medicines use by many patients with treatable chronic conditions.
Culture is an important determinant of medicines use.
Only 13% of studies linked individual-level medicines use to a health outcome.
We benchmarked our findings with available international data on diabetes medicines' use.
To understand medicines use patterns, we reviewed a sample of prescriptions in selected hospitals.
MUR: Medicines use review; QOF: Quality and outcomes framework; GP: General practitioner.
The main outcome measure was herbal medicines use for infertility treatment.
