This Issue Brief closely examines expenditures on prescription drugs, and discusses their potential to substitute for other types of health care services. In addition, it describes employer coverage of prescription drugs, direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, and potential legislation affecting the prescription drug market. Prescription drug expenditures grew at double-digit rat...

BACKGROUND Despite concerns about mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist therapies (MRAs) underuse and misuse in patients with heart failure, temporal and institutional variations of MRA prescription have not been reported. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied a national sample of veterans hospitalized for heart failure between 2003 and 2009 and left ventricular ejection fraction <40%. We identified...

BACKGROUND Inappropriate use of non-prescription remedies by persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) may result in adverse events or potentiate non-adherence to prescribed medications. This study investigated the use of non-prescription remedies among PLHIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) from four treatment centers in southern Ghana. METHODS A mixed method design usin...

The aim was to determine if bracket prescription has any effect on the subjective outcome of pre-adjusted edgewise treatment as judged by professionals. This retrospective observational assessment study was undertaken in the Orthodontic Department of the Charles Clifford Dental Hospital, Sheffield, UK. Forty sets of post-treatment study models from patients treated using a pre-adjusted edgewise...

Enteric fever is endemic in many parts of the third world. In India, it is the fifth most common infectious disease. With increasing resistance to fluoroquinolones and re-emergence of chloramphenicol , the policy of empirical treatment of TF needs to be rationalized. &nbsp; To compare the prescription &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; pattern &nbsp;&nbsp; for two successive years. To study the change in...

Hospital admissions due to acute barbiturate poisoning per million population in England and Wales have decreased since 1965 at about the same rate as NHS prescriptions for barbiturates. Admissions due to poisoning with other drugs have increased, but, largely because the benzodiazepine hypnotics and tranquillisers are much less toxic than the barbiturates that they are replacing, deaths from p...

Newer outpatient electronic prescribing software programs produce typewritten paper prescriptions with electronically created signatures. Current Canadian federal legislation forbids static (unchanging) signature images on prescriptions. We conducted a randomized trial of electronic prescribing in outpatients at a university-affiliated hospital. The application was a wireless Palm-based system ...

background and aims. irrational prescription of antibiotics by clinicians might lead to drug resistance. clinicians do prescribe antibiotics for either prophylactic or therapeutic reasons. the decision of when and what to prescribe leaves room for misuse and therefore it is imperative to continuously monitor knowledge and pattern of prescription. the aim of the present study was to determine th...

background health literacy presents an enormous challenge in the delivery of effective healthcare and quality outcomes. we evaluated the impact of low health literacy (lhl) on healthcare utilization and healthcare expenditure.   methods database analysis used medical expenditure panel survey (meps) from 2005-2008 which provides nationally representative estimates of healthcare utilization and e...

The use of antibiotics is common in hospice care despite limited evidence that it improves symptoms or quality of life. Patients receiving antibiotics upon discharge from a hospital may be more likely to continue use following transition to hospice care despite a shift in the goals of care. We quantified the frequency and characteristics for receiving a prescription for antibiotics on discharge...