Improving Injectable Medicines Prescription in Outpatient Services: A Path Towards Rational Use of Medicines in Iran

Abstract

Injection is one of the most common medical procedures in the health sector. Annually up to 16 billion injections are prescribed in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), many of them are not necessary for the patients, increase the healthcare costs and may result in side effects. Currently over 40% of outpatient prescriptions in Iran contain at least one injectable medicine. To address the issue, a working group was established (August 2014 to April 2015) to provide a comprehensive policy brief to be used by national decision-makers. This report is the extract of methods that were followed and the main policy options for improving injectable medicines prescribing in outpatient services. Thirty-three potential policy options were developed focusing on different stakeholders. The panel reached consensus on seven policy options, noting effectiveness, cost, durability, and feasibility of each policy. The recommended policy options are targeted at patients and public (2 policies), insurers (2), physicians (1), pharmacies (1), and the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) (1).

Assessment of the Iran Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance

“…There are several socio-economic factors that can influence the adequate antibiotics consumption in the low-income countries such as Iran. These factors include the high patientdoctor ratios that prevent adequate evaluation of the symptoms of patients, as well as nonaffordable costs of diagnostic tests that inhibit doctors to order such tests for low-income patients and consequently, lead them to perform empiric treatments (26). There are also similar investigations that mention the possible incorrect results of diagnostic tests and their consequent impacts on the restricted healthcare resources (27).…”

Antibiotic Prescribing in Outpatient Before and After Implementation of the Urban Family Physician and Referral System

“…The previous studies in Iran have demonstrated that 51-59% of medications prescribed by general practitioners are antibiotics (3,(12)(13)(14)(15). Improving the pattern of prescribing and consuming drugs, especially antibiotics, as well as reducing the costs of their consumption, is one of the most important goals and tasks of health managers and policy makers (16). Given the effective performance of the Health System Reform Plan, in particular the Family Physician and Referral System, world health organization (WHO) considers this project as the global effort to improve the quality, effectiveness, equity, and cost reduction in the health care (17).…”