Response Forms Reflect Pharmacists' Participation in Retrospective OUR

Effect of Practitioner Education on Adherence to Asthma Treatment Guidelines

“…24 Those interventions reduced inappropriate drug prescribing patterns 3–12 months after the mailing of intervention letters and were able to decrease target drug costs. 13–24 However, there are some noteworthy distinctions between those studies and ours. The other studies targeted inappropriate drug utilization, with the discontinuation of medications as their primary goal.…”

“…The other studies targeted inappropriate drug utilization, with the discontinuation of medications as their primary goal. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] In contrast, the goal of our letter-based intervention was to increase the use of long-term control agents by patients with asthma. Only a few descriptions of patient-specific letter interventions attempting to add medications to a patient's regimen to improve pharmacotherapy have been published.…”

“…These data, along with previous studies, lend support for the inclusion of patients, as well as prescribers and pharmacists, as targets for future letter-based interventions. 19,22,24,27 Because this investigation was conducted in the Connecticut Medicaid asthma population, caution should be taken to not overgeneralize the results. Medicaid asthma populations are unlikely to be representative of the general asthma population.…”

“…Patient-specific, letter-based interventions have been used repeatedly and successfully as a means to improve prescribing patterns for a number of drug classes including: antiulcer (n = 8), 13–20 sedative–hypnotics (n = 3), 21–23 asthma (n = 1), 14,21 and antiplatelet (n = 1). 24 Those interventions reduced inappropriate drug prescribing patterns 3–12 months after the mailing of intervention letters and were able to decrease target drug costs.…”

“…These data, along with previous studies, lend support for the inclusion of patients, as well as prescribers and pharmacists, as targets for future letter-based interventions. 19,22,24,27…”