Identification of drug cost reduction opportunities in a university hospital in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Expenditure on medications represents significant proportion of the total hospital budget. Establishing an effective drug cost management program is a priority area for hospitals that must begin with determining the current costs and pattern of use of medications. The aim of the present study is to determine the cost and pattern of drug utilization at the study hospital in order to identify cost reduction opportunities. A descriptive retrospective design was used to examine the cost and pattern of drug utilization for all admissions during the period from 1[st] January 2006 to 30[th] June 2006 in an university hospital in Eastern Saudi Arabis. Electronic patient data as well as manual drug cost data were obtained and merged to create the analysis database. The study revealed that the total drug cost at the study hospital was SR 11, 823, 666.9 [mean per admission=SR 2123.5 and median per admission=SR 357.3] during the study period. Antibiotics were responsible for 35.8% of the total inpatient drug costs followed by blood products which accounted for 20.6% of the total inpatient drug costs. Further investigation of both groups revealed that the combination of piperacillin and tazobactam represented 4.5% of prescribed drugs and accounted for almost half of the inpatient ntbiotic costs [SR 2, 064, 916.8] and 17.4% of the total hospital's inpatient drug costs. Human alumin and intravenous immunoglobulin were responsible for the majority of cost of blood products. Piperacillin and tazobactam, human albumin, and intravenous immunoglobulin other than Rho [D] immunoglobulin are responsible for high percentage of drug expenditure at the study hospital while being prescribed to a limited number of patients. Designing a drug cost management program to target these three drugs will increase the likelihood of achieving significant cost reduction