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Cost-Related Information to be Provided by Computerised Drug-Prescription Systems to Promote Cost-Effective Prescribing

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Summary

Drug prescriptions are a source of steadily increasing healthcare expenditure in most developed countries. As the use of Computerised Drug Prescription Systems (CDPS) increases both in hospital and community-care settings, the potential of such systems to promote cost-effective prescribing and help contain prescription costs should be considered.

This article describes the cost-related information that could be provided by a CDPS, namely decision-support information to be provided on-line during the prescription entry, and retrospective information made available by processing stored prescription records. The review also describes design and specification requirements for building a cost-information module that can be used in various health-delivery systems. These are: (i) adequate and well-organised data; (ii) pertinent background knowledge of the domain; and (iii) algorithms that allow adaptation to site-specific features.

The propositions expounded in this article result from a part of the work performed during the Optimisation of Drug Prescription using Advanced Informatics (OPADE) European project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Biostatistiques et Informatique Médicale, Institut de Recherche Thérapeutique, UFR Cochin - Port Royal, Université René Descartes Paris V, Paris, France

    Claudine Milstein &  Alain Venot

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  1. Claudine Milstein
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  2. Alain Venot
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Milstein, C., Venot, A. Cost-Related Information to be Provided by Computerised Drug-Prescription Systems to Promote Cost-Effective Prescribing. Pharmacoeconomics 12, 130–139 (1997). https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-199712020-00004

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