Activities to improve hospital prescribing

Abstract

EducationIdeally medical students should be educated in the principles of good prescribing before they enter the hospital. On the wards, these principles should be reinforced with bedside teaching and examinations. The quality use of medicines needs to be recognised as an important part of medical education and intern training programs.Junior medical staff make most of the prescribing decisions in hospitals and young interns prescribe largely by following the instructions of more senior residents and consultants. Educational activities should be tailored to the different levels of therapeutic decision-making in teaching hospitals.While they may be useful to disseminate information, didactic educational meetings such as lectures, alone, have little or no effect on practice. 7 The impact of training and education seems to be increased by:• using interactive meetings (e.g. group problem solving, role playing, workshops)• repeated sessions

Prescribing Pattern of Antimicrobials used in Under Five Years Children in Cough or Cold and Pneumonia in Outdoor Settings of Two Tertiary Level Hospital

“…The quality use of medicines needs to be recognized as an important part of medical education and intern training programs. 28 In conclusion, a broad-based, educational programme for students and doctors, support from diagnostic bacteriology groups and medico-pharmaceutical departments, limited prescribing of the more expensive antibiotics, and cooperation from the pharmaceutical industry will be required in order to achieve appropriate use of antibiotics. 17 We must learn more about the pharmacology of certain antibiotics in order to use these agents better.…”

Improving the safety and efficacy of warfarin therapy in a metropolitan private hospital: A multidisciplinary practice improvement project

“…This 12% improvement is greater than the project target which was set at 10%. This conservative target was chosen based on the extensive literature which describes the diffi culty in modifying doctors' prescribing practices (Dartnell, 2001;Ostini et al, 2009).…”

Establishing and strengthening a medicine and therapeutics committee in a medical college in Nepal: initial experiences

“…These results will be presented to the MTC shortly and appropriate interventions carried out. Multifaceted interventions aimed at the barriers preventing good prescribing have the greatest chance of success [9]. Studies on dispensing using standard indicators (average dispensing time, percentage of drugs actually dispensed, percentage of drugs adequately labeled and patients' knowledge of correct dosage) will be carried out soon.…”