Frontier of Knowledge: A Decade Experience of Hospital-Based Drug Use Evaluation (พรมแดนแห่งความรู้ : หนึ่งทศวรรษ ของการประเมินการใช้ยาในโรงพยาบาล)

The objective of this article was to describe a decade old experience of qualitative drug use evaluation (DUE) programs in Thailand. Graduate theses and published research on DUE conducted in certain hospitals were reviewed, focusing on their methodology and results. Recent findings in the nation-wide qualitative DUE for five target drugs that were reported regularly by the Ministry of Public Health affiliated hospitals were summarized. In addition, current perception towards DUE was elaborated by survey of hospital pharmacists and physicians. The study extended from September 2002 to July 2003. It was found that the hospital utilization of antibiotics was grossly deemed inappropriate in a large based on most DUE criteria. Pharmacy intervention could, then, raise quality of drug use. Previous studies in certain hospitals have reported a wide range of potential cost saving as a result of the interventions given when inappropriate drug use occurred. Eventhough several hospitals have claimed to be actively involved in DUE after it was recommended in the National Policy of Essential Drugs, only about one third of the general and regional hospitals reported their activities and findings on DUE. Compared with findings from the individual research, rates of appropriate drug use in the hospital reports, in general, were relatively higher. In the survey, the pharmacists claimed to have sufficient knowledge on setting up DUE criteria despite lacks of confidence in team working with physicians. Scope of DUE was limited to the hospital restriction policy on drug prescribing as perceived by most of the physicians.