Healthc Inform Res.  2016 Jul;22(3):178-185. 10.4258/hir.2016.22.3.178.

Constructing a Real-Time Prescription Drug Monitoring System

• Park YT
• Lee YT
• Jo EC

• KMID: 2357396
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4258/hir.2016.22.3.178

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this investigation was to demonstrate the possibility of the construction of a real-time prescription drug monitoring system (PDMOS) using data from the nationwide Drug Utilization Review (DUR) system in Korea.
METHODS
The DUR system collects information on drug prescriptions issued by healthcare practitioners and on drugs dispensed by pharmacies. PDMOS was constructed using this data. The screen of PDMOS is designed to exhibit the number of drug prescriptions, the number of prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies, and the dispensed prescription drug costs on a daily and weekly basis. Data was sourced from the DUR system between June 1, 2016 and July 18, 2016. The TOGA solution developed by the EYEQMC Co. Ltd. of Seoul, Korea was used to produce the screen shots.
RESULTS
Prescription numbers by medical facilities were more numerous than the number of prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies, as expected. The number of prescriptions per day was between 2 to 3 million. The prescriptions issued by primary care clinics were most numerous, at 75% of the total number of prescriptions. Daily prescription drug costs were found to be approximately US $50 million. The prescription drug costs were highest on Mondays and were reduced towards the end of the week. Prescriptions and dispensed prescriptions numbered approximately 1,200 and 1,000 million, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
The construction of a real-time PDMOS has been successful to provide daily and weekly information. There was a lag time of only one day at the national level in terms of information extraction, and scarcely any time was required to load the data. Therefore, this study highlights the potential of constructing a PDMOS to monitor the estimate the number of prescriptions and the resulting expenditures from prescriptions.

Keyword

Prescription Drugs; Drug Monitoring; Drug Costs; Drug Utilization; Drug Utilization Review

MeSH Terms

Delivery of Health Care
Drug Costs
Drug Monitoring*
Drug Prescriptions
Drug Utilization
Drug Utilization Review
Health Expenditures
Information Storage and Retrieval
Korea
Pharmacies
Prescription Drugs
Prescriptions*
Primary Health Care
Seoul
Prescription Drugs

Figure

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  Figure 1 Drop-down search boxes of the front page of the Prescription Drug Monitoring System.

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  Figure 2 Number of drug prescriptions by type of facility, region, and prescription trends.

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  Figure 3 Number of drug prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies by type of facility, region, and prescription trends.

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  Figure 4 Daily costs of prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies and related trends.

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  Figure 5 Weekly number of drug prescriptions and related trends.

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  Figure 6 Weekly number of drug prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies according to the type of facility and region.

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  Figure 7 Weekly costs of prescription drugs dispensed by pharmacies.

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