Prescribing quality is essential to ensure safe and effective patient care. The use of a personal formulary of medications has been proposed as a strategy to improve prescribing quality1. The Drug Utilisation 90% (DU90%) is a measure of the number of medications that account for 90% of a doctor’s prescriptions and has been used as a prescribing quality indicator in various jurisdictions2. This cross-sectional study aims to analyze the DU90% in a sample of Irish general practices, exploring variations between practices and prescribers, changes in DU90% over two time periods, and the relationship between DU90% and other prescribing quality indicators.
Ethical approval will be obtained from the Irish College of General Practitioners to collect anonymous prescription data over two years, including drug information, prescriber and practice indicators, and aggregate practice demographic details. The study will recruit approximately twenty practices from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland GP tutor network.
DU90% will be calculated for each practice and prescriber at each time point to identify variations. Summary statistics of participating practices’ demographics, including total patients and age/gender profiles, will be presented. The association between DU90% and other prescribing quality indicators will also be explored.
The study will provide valuable insights into prescribing quality in Irish general practices, including variations between practices and prescribers and highlight the benefits of personal formularies. Participating practices will receive feedback on their DU90% and prevalence of prescribing quality indicators, facilitating quality improvement initiatives. Overall, this has the potential to improve medication safety and reduce preventable drug-related morbidity in primary care.
