title: Pediatric otitis media.
abstract: The pediatric patients with routine, easiest-to-treat otitis media utilize 2.1 office visits during the course of a PTE. This patient group also received 0.13 tests, 0.14 laboratory and pathology services, and 0.05 medical/surgical procedures during the course of a PTE. Though 29.2% of these patients did not produce a claim for prescription drug therapy, this patient group received at least 1.53 prescriptions per PTEs. One prescription drug group was used in 39.8% of all PTEs. Of the PTEs treated with a single drug group, at least 56.4% were treated with amoxicillin. Two prescription drug groups were used in 18.1% of the PTEs. The prescribing patterns of physicians using two drug groups demonstrate a wide variety of switching patterns, some of which may have cost-of-care implications. Though surgical procedures are seldom utilized in SOI-1, approximately one-half of SOI-2 PTEs undergo some type of surgical procedure. The most common surgical procedure was myringotomy with the PE-TM tubes, which represents 82% of procedures performed on SOI-2 patients. The major cost drivers in the treatment of otitis media are clinical visits and antimicrobial drugs.
authors.affiliation: Practice Patterns Science, Inc., Earth City, MO 63045, USA.
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Julien
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gricar
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Cave
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003628:Database Management Systems; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005251:Fees, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D010033:Otitis Media / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics / Q000601:surgery; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents