A Review on Prescribing Indicators and Prescription Auditing

ABSTRACT

Prescription auditing is a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care. Medical Audit may be defined as a process with the aim of making improvements in patient care and proper use of resources. The most important part of healthcare system is to deliver the right medicine to the right people. Prescription auditing is one of the important tools to avoid misuse of drugs and improve rational use of drugs. The performance of the health care providers related to the appropriate use of drugs can be accessed by analysing different prescribing indicators. The parameters which have to be analysed in the process of prescription auditing are Patient demographics, Clinical diagnosis, Department, Prescribing standards, Doctor’s name and signature. A total of 25 national and international articles were collected to see the prescribing pattern of drugs. Various studies showed that majority of practitioners do not follow the guidelines while writing prescriptions and usage of drugs. There is a need to standardize the prescribing patterns in India so that all essential information is included and will be helpful for the better patient care. Irrational prescribing and improper dispensing leads to unnecessary expenditure for the patient. The present study could serve as a frame work upon which further studies can be launched in prescription auditing to investigate the scope for educational intervention and improvement in prescribing patterns.