title: The quality of pharmacologic care for adults in the United States.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Despite rising annual expenditures for prescription drugs, little systematic information is available concerning the quality of pharmacologic care for adults in the United States. We evaluated how frequently appropriate pharmacologic care is ordered in a national sample of U.S. residents.
  
  
  METHODS
  The RAND/UCLA Modified Delphi process was used to select quality-of-care indicators for adults across 30 chronic and acute conditions and preventive care. One hundred thirty-three pharmacologic quality-of-care indicators were identified. We interviewed a random sample of adults living in 12 metropolitan areas in the United States by telephone and received consent to obtain copies of their medical records for the most recent 2-year period. We abstracted patient medical records and evaluated 4 domains of the prescribing process that encompassed the entire pharmacologic care experience: appropriate medication prescribing (underuse), avoidance of inappropriate medications (overuse), medication monitoring, and medication education and documentation. A total of 3,457 participants were eligible for at least 1 quality indicator, and 10,739 eligible events were evaluated. We constructed aggregate scores and studied whether patient, insurance, and community factors impact quality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants received 61.9% of recommended pharmacologic care overall (95% confidence interval 60.3-63.5%). Performance was lowest in education and documentation (46.2%); medication monitoring (54.7%) and underuse of appropriate medications (62.6%) performance were higher. Performance was best for avoiding inappropriate medications (83.5%). Patient race and health services utilization were associated with modest quality differences, while insurance status was not.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Significant deficits in the quality of pharmacologic care were seen for adults in the United States, with large shortfalls associated with underuse of appropriate medications. Strategies to measure and improve pharmacologic care quality ought to be considered, especially as we initiate a prescription drug benefit for seniors.
authors.affiliation: Harvard Medical School, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02120, USA. wshrank@partners.org
authors.forename: William H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Shrank
authors.forename: Steven M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Asch
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Setodji
authors.forename: Eve A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Kerr
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keesey
authors.forename: Shaista
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: McGlynn
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003697:Delphi Technique; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008485:Medical Audit; D008875:Middle Aged; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D014481:United States