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Prototype Prescribing Outlier Dashboard for The Stanmore Medical Centre

At OpenPrescribing we are piloting a number of data-driven approaches to identify unusual prescribing and collect feedback on this prescribing to inform development of new tools to support prescribers and organisations to audit and review prescribing. These pilot results are provided for the interest of advanced users, although we don't know how relevant they are in practice. There is substantial variation in prescribing behaviours, across various different areas of medicine. Some variation can be explained by demographic changes, or local policies or guidelines, but much of the remaining variation is less easy to explain.

The DataLab is keen to hear your feedback on the results. You can do this by completing the following survey or emailing us at [email protected]. Please DO NOT INCLUDE IDENTIFIABLE PATIENT information in your feedback. All feedback is helpful, you can send short or detailed feedback.

This report has been developed to automatically identify prescribing patterns at a chemical level which are furthest away from “typical prescribing” and can be classified as an “outlier”. We calculate the number of prescriptions for each chemical in the BNF coding system, the count of all prescriptions within that chemical's BNF subparagraph, for prescriptions dispensed between June 2021 and December 2021. We then calculate the ratio of these counts along with the mean and standard deviation of those ratios across all Practices. From this we can calculate the “z-score”, which is a measure of how many standard deviations a given Practice is from the population mean. We then rank your “z-scores” to find the top 10 results where prescribing is an outlier for prescribing higher than its peers and those where it is an outlier for prescribing lower than its peers.

For each outlier chemical, a kernel density estimation plot of all Practice's chemical:subparagraph ratios is provided, with this Practice's ratio overlaid in red.

It is important to remember that this information was generated automatically and it is therefore likely that some of the behaviour is warranted. This report seeks only to collect information about where this variation may be warranted and where it might not, to inform research on this topic. Our full analytical method code is openly available on GitHub here.

This is a new, experimental feature. We'd love to .

Prescribing where The Stanmore Medical Centre is higher than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Formaldehyde 2 Preparations for warts and calluses 15 0.13 0.00 0.01 11.72
Eletriptan 17 Treatment of acute migraine 153 0.11 0.00 0.01 7.35
Other osmotic laxative preparations 1 Osmotic laxatives 1,602 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.20
Arnica montana 2 Rubefacients, topical NSAIDS, capsaicin and poultice 1,041 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.92
Moxifloxacin 12 Quinolones 70 0.17 0.01 0.03 5.61
Pneumococcal 60 Vaccines and antisera 72 0.83 0.05 0.14 5.52
Calcium carbonate 36 Compound Alginates and proprietary indigestion preparations 587 0.06 0.00 0.01 5.19
Phenytoin 20 Control of epilepsy 3,055 0.01 0.00 0.00 4.13
Benzalkonium chloride 102 Barrier preparations 173 0.59 0.05 0.14 3.83
Cyclizine lactate 39 Drugs used in nausea and vertigo 542 0.07 0.01 0.02 3.61

Prescribing where The Stanmore Medical Centre is lower than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Alginic acid compound preparations 551 Compound Alginates and proprietary indigestion preparations 587 0.94 1.00 0.01 -4.61
Medroxyprogesterone acetate 4 Parenteral progestogen-only contraceptives 10 0.40 0.88 0.15 -3.13
Influenza 0 Vaccines and antisera 72 0.00 0.88 0.28 -3.13
    Desogestrel 87 Oral progestogen-only contraceptives 109 0.80 0.93 0.05 -2.52
    Potassium chloride 18 Oral potassium 29 0.62 0.96 0.14 -2.46
    Hydralazine hydrochloride 2 Vasodilator antihypertensive drugs 9 0.22 0.85 0.28 -2.25
    Combined ethinylestradiol 30mcg 142 Combined hormonal contraceptives 218 0.65 0.81 0.07 -2.21
    Methylprednisolone acetate 0 Local corticosteroid injections 26 0.00 0.74 0.39 -1.89
      Diazepam 323 Anxiolytics 622 0.52 0.75 0.13 -1.76
      Fluconazole 41 Triazole antifungals 66 0.62 0.85 0.13 -1.73