1. Use of Auditing and Feedback in an Outpatient Hospice Setting: Quality and Pharmacoeconomic Oversight
- Author
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Kestenbaum, Matthew G, Harrison, Krista, Masi, Domitilla, Kuhl, Emily A, and Muir, J Cameron
- Subjects
Health Services and Systems ,Biomedical and Clinical Sciences ,Health Sciences ,Clinical Research ,Pain Research ,Chronic Pain ,Health Services ,Generic health relevance ,Ambulatory Care ,Analgesics ,Opioid ,Antidepressive Agents ,Antipsychotic Agents ,Drug Costs ,Economics ,Pharmaceutical ,Feedback ,Hospice Care ,Humans ,Medical Audit ,Practice Patterns ,Physicians' ,Quality of Health Care ,Auditing and feedback ,hospice ,pharmacy and therapeutics ,expenditures ,Medical and Health Sciences ,Anesthesiology ,Biomedical and clinical sciences ,Health sciences - Abstract
BackgroundClinicians play an important role in containing pharmaceutical spending at the patient level, as well as ensuring efficacy and quality outcomes, yet little research has examined how to achieve this goal.MeasuresUsing auditing and feedback (A&F) as part of a Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee, we evaluated our community-based hospice program's prescribing habits for opioids, antipsychotics, and antidepressants and calculated oral pharmaceutical prescription costs per-patient-day. Quality of care was reflected by patient pain scores in electronic medical records.InterventionOur P&T Committee adopted an A&F approach to monitor and assess provider prescribing habits and cost. An already-existing pain quality improvement program assessed care quality.OutcomesPain relief either improved or was maintained while medication costs were reduced by over $1.00 per-patient-day from 2010 to 2011.Conclusions/lessons learnedAn active, hospice P&T Committee featuring A&F can significantly affect medication costs for a hospice program while maintaining or improving patient outcomes.
- Published
- 2019