Personal formularies: An index of prescribing quality?

Abstract

Objectives: (1) To determine the extent to which Australian general practitioners (GPs) restrict the numbers of agents they prescribe within a drug class ('personal formularies'); (2) To assess concordance of these drug choices with standards based on established guidelines or recognised good prescribing practices; (3) To assess the potential of these measures as indicators of the quality of prescribing. Methods: Australian Health Insurance Commission (HIC) prescription data (1994-1997) for around 15,400 GPs providing 1500 or more Medicare services per year were analysed. Measures of an individual GP's use of a personal formulary (determined by number of agents) and concordance with prescrib..