Usefulness of patient/drug information described on prescriptions of drugs to be regulated in accordance with the grade of kidney function

Abstract

In Sakai City Medical Center, creatinine clearance (Ccr) is described on prescriptions. When drugs to be regulated in accordance with the kidney function are prescribed, the term “kidney” follows the drug name. Furthermore, the submission of PreAVOID reports is promoted in our hospital, and the number of reports has slightly increased. Many reports associated with the kidney function have also been submitted. In this study, we examined the influence of patient/drug information described on prescriptions on the accuracy of dispensing/surveillance and optimization of prescription surveillance, as well as the timing of PreAVOID -report submission and changes in the contents. A prescription surveillance involving pharmacists in our hospital and university pharmacy students was conducted by preparing sham prescriptions. On all sham prescriptions, Ccr was described, and prescriptions with “kidney” and without such a description were prepared. The accuracy of surveillance and time required were established as endpoints. Concerning PreAVOID reports, we compared reports on drugs for which kidney-function-based regulation is necessary between PreAVOID report groups in 2015 (“kidney”-describing group (2015)) and 2014 (non-“kidney”-describing group (2014)).　The accuracy of auditing prescriptions with the “kidney” description was significantly higher than that of auditing prescriptions without such a description, and the time required for surveillance was significantly shortened. When comparing the number of kidney-function-associated PreAVOID reports between the above two groups, it was significantly greater in the “kidney”-describing group (2015).　These results suggest that information on prescriptions contributes to an improvement in the accuracy of dispensing/surveillance and reduction of the time required, facilitating accurate, efficient surveillance. Thus, the description of “drugs to be regulated in accordance with the kidney function” on prescriptions may be useful for achieving prompt drug therapy.