AIMS The objective of this study was to estimate the social cost of the consumption of illegal drugs in Spain. DESIGN We performed a cost-of-illness study, using a prevalence approximation and a societal perspective. The estimation of costs and consequences referred to 1997. As direct costs we included health-care costs, prevention, continuing education, research, administrative costs, non-go...

BACKGROUND Providers wish to help patients with prescription costs but often lack drug cost information. We examined whether giving providers formulary and drug cost information was associated with changes in their diabetes patients' drug costs and use. We conducted a longitudinal non-randomized evaluation of the web-based Prescribing Guide ( www.PrescribingGuide.com ), a free resource availabl...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Few economic data exist on the treatment of indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and there are none in the published literature concerning relapsed disease. This international analysis (Canada, Germany, Italy) was established to estimate the overall direct cost of treating patients with relapsed indolent NHL and determine the main cost components of treatment. DESIG...

In a randomized trial of a clinical decision support system for drug prescribing for residents with renal insufficiency in a large long-term care facility, analyses were conducted to estimate the system's immediate, direct financial impact. We determined the costs that would have been incurred if drug orders that triggered the alert system had actually been completed compared to the costs of th...