OBJECTIVE To elicit prescribers' preferences for behavioural economics interventions designed to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, and compare these to actual behaviour. DESIGN Discrete choice experiment (DCE). SETTING 47 primary care centres in Boston and Los Angeles. PARTICIPANTS 234 primary care providers, with an average 20 years of practice. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Re...

OBJECTIVES To examine the effectiveness of a quality improvement program to decrease prescribing of high-risk medications. DESIGN Single cohort, pre- and postintervention. SETTING Regional network of Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities. PARTICIPANTS Outpatient veterans aged 65 and older who received one or more high-risk medications and the prescribing clinicians. INTERVEN...

OBJECTIVE To review the literature on educational interventions to improve prescribing and identify educational methods that improve prescribing competency in both medical and non-medical prescribers. DESIGN A systematic review was conducted. The databases Medline, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA), EMBASE and CINAHL were searched for articles in English published between January 1...

D ata from the recent therapeutic practice survey carried out by City University showed that community optometrists routinely managed a range of common non-sight-threatening ocular conditions using therapeutic agents available through the Medicines Act exemptions (Optician, July 27, 2007). Recent changes to medicines legislation have provided opportunities for optometrists to train for extended...

BACKGROUND Prescription review by pharmacists prior to dispensing is an important step in an overall strategy for preventing medication errors. Contacts with prescribers may be required to clarify missing, unclear, or inconsistent information. While essential to reduce the likelihood of potential patient harm, clarification contacts are time-consuming for pharmacists and prescribers. The scope ...

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