Drug Use Evaluation

I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 DRUG USE EVALUATION

Drug use evaluation (DUE) can be defined as an authorized, structured, ongoing review of prescribing, dispensing and use of drugs. DUE encompasses a medication review against predetermined criteria that results in changes to medication therapy when these criteria are not fulfill. It includes a comprehensive evaluation of patients' prescription and medication data before, during and after dispensing inorder to ensure appropriate medication decision-making and leads to better patient results. As a quality assurance measure, DUE programs aims corrective action, prescriber feedback and further evaluations.

DUE is classified in three categories:

 Prospective - evaluation of a patient's drug therapy

DUE programs play a important role in helping managed health care systems to understand, interpret, review and improve the pattern of prescribing, administration and usage of medications. Employers and health plans find DUE programs effective since the outcomes are used to foster more effective use of scarce health care resources.

Pharmacists play a important role in this process because of their skill in the area of drug therapy management. DUE affords the managed care pharmacist the chance to identify trends in prescribing within community of patients whether by pathological-state such as those with asthma, diabetes or high blood pressure, or by medication-specific criteria.

Pharmacists can then, in association with prescribers and other members of the health care team, start the action to improve medication therapy for patients.

1.1.2 BACKGROUND

DUE is an concurrent, systematic process developed to maintain the appropriate and effective use of drugs. It includes a comprehensive evaluation of a patient’s drugs and health history before, during, and after dispensing in order to attempt to get accurate therapeutic decision-making and better patient

Prospective DUE: Prospective review includes reviewing a patient's planned medication therapy before a medication is dispensed. This process allows the pharmacist to identify and rectify problems before the patient has obtain the drugs. Pharmacists periodically perform prospective evaluation in their daily practice by reviewing a prescription medications dosage and directions while evaluating patient information for possible drug interactions. When part of an online claims adjudication process, prospective DUE sometimes relies on computerized algorithms to perform key checks involving drug interactions, duplications or contraindications with the patient’s disease state or