Published by Computachem Services

P.O Box 297.
Alstonville. 2477
NSW Australia

Phone:
61 2 66285138

Evaluation is a buzz word among program directors and managers and yet how much is ever done on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)?
How easy would it be to gather information on how many of the number of repeats printed are ever dispensed?
A challenge is sent out to a person who can come up with an answer from their own community pharmacy practice.
This is a measure of success for the PBS and its three key stakeholders – the doctors, pharmacist and manufacturers.

“Compliance” should be the measure of the success of the PBS.
If people are taking their prescribed medicine everyone should be happy, including the patient who one would hope is feeling better!
The doctor who prescribed – time was not wasted.
The manufacturer who made the product – a sale was closed.
The pharmacist who dispensed – the input was worth it.

The question must be asked “who cares?”
Is there a stakeholder with the task of finding out if the whole exercise is worth it?
The simple answer is “no”.
Our country is spending in excess of $4 billion a year of taxpayer’s money on medicines and yet no one is evaluating the outcome. If this was a public company the shareholders would be furious. Because it is “our” money it is as if no one gives a damn. It is an average of say one dollar a day for every working day of the year..
Not much? – no – not even half a stubby of beer or three cigarettes and maybe the cost of a Mars Bar a day and most can afford that for themselves and one for their 1.2 children!!

Okay so how good is it?
Working on an island in the Timor Sea 80 Kms off the coast of Australia with a population of 1300 it is possible to get a good idea of who is taking what.
Would it surprise many that the compliance rate was less than 50%?
However that figure is good compared to communities in the East Arnhem region which report less than 10% compliance1.
Comparisons cannot be made as there is no data available from the western culture on the rate of compliance achieved.

And yet it would be easy to get. It is not collected because none of the three key stakeholders listed above want their satisfaction levels measured.

Easy? – how?
There are thousands of repeats written out each day by pharmacists for patients.
How many of them are ever dispensed?
This is the answer.
If it is found that 60% of the first repeats are dispensed then that is probably very good compared with remote communities or people on an island.

A conclusion that one group of people is less compliant than another can only be drawn when data is available.

Let’s start now
This is a task that any pharmacist could do for their own client base and unfortunately there is no one to assist. Maybe for all concession patients there is the data from PBS stats but for the general patients it can only be done from the individual pharmacy data.
A small town in a rural area would be a good starting comparison with a remote island community.
Ends

Any pharmacist interested in doing a compliance study should contact the writer at rollom@austarnet.com.au