Utilizing VA information technology to develop psychiatric resident prescription profiles.
OBJECTIVE
Feedback about resident prescription practices allows psychiatry educators to ensure that residents have broad prescribing experience and can facilitate practice-based learning initiatives. The authors report on a procedure utilizing U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' computerized pharmacy records to efficiently construct comprehensive individual psychiatric resident prescription practice profiles.


METHODS
Veterans Affairs information technology provided a methodology to efficiently construct individual and aggregate resident prescription profiles, including cost data. To demonstrate the utility of prescription profiles, individual and aggregate antipsychotic medication prescription profiles were constructed of nine residents working in a Veterans Affairs psychotic disorders clinic.


RESULTS
Developing the individual and aggregate prescription profiles required only 5 hours. The profiles revealed that residents had a restricted range of experience prescribing antipsychotic medications, with some residents not having prescribed all five major atypical agents and the majority having prescribed a limited number of typical agents. The profiles highlighted cost differences among the atypical antipsychotic medications and between the typical and atypical antipsychotic medications.


CONCLUSIONS
Prescription profiles facilitate resident education by enabling educators to determine the range of antipsychotic medications residents prescribe. A psychiatric residency program could utilize these prescription profiles to improve resident competency in practice based learning.
Rohrbaugh
Robert
R
Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, 300 George St., Suite 901, Room 24, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. Robert.rohrbaugh@yale.edu
Federman
Daniel G
DG
Borysiuk
Lydia
L
Sernyak
Michael
M
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000191:economics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003479:Curriculum; D016527:Drug Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055695:Electronic Prescribing; D006787:Hospitals, Veterans; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D008890:Military Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents