title: Prescribing pattern in a Dutch university hospital.
abstract: In many countries, including The Netherlands, little is known about the overall prescribing patterns within hospitals. While individual hospitals have some data available, these are not pooled on a regional or national level. The available data consist of dispensing data that are neither patient-linked nor diagnosis-linked. We report the results of a study in a Dutch university hospital which show that despite the limitations, such data can be used for a general evaluation of prescribing patterns. Using three categories of undesirable or irrational drug prescribing the dispensing data were screened. The categories were 'inferior or dubious' drugs, 'semi-innovative' drugs, and 'inappropriately used' drugs. The results show that most problems are seen with the use of new drugs. In the first instance, this involves the use of semi-innovative drugs whose adoption may be stimulated by clinical trials in the hospital concerned. Secondly, innovative drugs seem to be used on too large a scale, i.e., for indications for which their use is not warranted. Based on these findings, a follow-up study has been initiated to study some of these suboptimal drug choices in detail.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Denig
authors.forename: F M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Haaijer-Ruskamp
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Versluis
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wesseling
mesh_terms: D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006785:Hospitals, University; D009426:Netherlands