By applying a recall time horizon of 1 week for pharmaceuticals, 3 months for physician visits and 12 months for more memorable services, the study design attempted to minimise this problem.
Further elements of the program are the documentation of the course of disease and treatment every 3-6 months, reminders for physicians and patients and a continuous evaluation of the DMP [ 4].
Overall, changes were minimal with no significant effect sizes at 4 or 6 months or 9 or12 months post-intervention for physician visits, ED visits or hospitalizations.
Information on time to conception (<6 months, 6 12 months, or >12 months) for planned pregnancies, physician consultation for infertility, and regularity (yes vs. no) of menstrual periods in the 12 months prior to pregnancy were reported by mothers in questionnaires.
Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and use of acetaminophen as the preferred drug was measured at three months in an educational program for physicians and other staff (Stein 2001 [ 27]).
Knowing whether the chance to develop SREs is high or low and whether an SRE may occur within months or years is useful for physicians when planning the frequency of follow-up investigations and guiding decisions about the choice of treatment.
Although most of the ICU staff believe that the CPOE and bar-code has the potential to improve medication safety and the quality of care for critically ill patients, our survey showed a low level of satisfaction 6 months after implementing the system, particularly for physicians who consider the system unfriendly.
The 36 physicians providing care at the intervention homes were mailed a prescribing guide together with each individual physician's prescribing profile for the previous three months; these physicians received a second mailing with the same information 4 months later.
We defined "appropriate clinical action" as any of these pharmacotherapeutic interventions or return to control without therapy modification within 12 months as physicians may sometimes opt for non-pharmacological recommendations [ 5].
To this, the patient continued "1 year?" "half a year?" "3 months?" For each of these, the physician replied "that's difficult".
