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Prototype Prescribing Outlier Dashboard for St James Medical Practice Limited

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 St James Medical Practice Limited is higher than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Arachis oil 10 Shampoos and some other scalp preparations 156 0.06 0.00 0.00 38.17
Ferric maltol 36 Oral iron 871 0.04 0.00 0.00 11.26
Dextromethorphan hydrobromide 2 Cough suppressants 3 0.67 0.01 0.07 9.69
Alkyl sulfate 9 Shampoos and some other scalp preparations 156 0.06 0.00 0.01 9.00
Doxepin 32 Tricyclic and related antidepressant drugs 978 0.03 0.00 0.00 8.28
Irbesartan with diuretic 59 Angiotensin-II receptor antagonists 1,369 0.04 0.00 0.01 5.53
Minocycline hydrochloride 6 Tetracyclines 101 0.06 0.00 0.01 4.96
Perindopril arginine with diuretic 52 Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors 4,355 0.01 0.00 0.00 4.95
Metoprolol tartrate 174 Beta-adrenoceptor blocking drugs 3,450 0.05 0.01 0.01 4.78
Ciprofloxain/dexameth 25 Otitis externa 77 0.32 0.05 0.06 4.20

Prescribing where St James Medical Practice Limited is lower than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Methylphenidate hydrochloride 9 CNS Stimulants and drugs used for ADHD 59 0.15 0.65 0.20 -2.43
Budesonide 1 Corticosteroids 12 0.08 0.71 0.32 -1.95
Dexamethasone 42 Otitis externa 77 0.55 0.78 0.12 -1.91
Emollient bath and shower preparations 41 Emollient bath and shower preparations 181 0.23 0.63 0.21 -1.91
Vitamin E 0 Vitamin E 2 0.00 0.72 0.41 -1.76
    Betamethasone valerate 128 Topical corticosteroids 751 0.17 0.28 0.07 -1.67
    Fluorouracil (Sunscreen) 0 Sunscreening preparations 10 0.00 0.45 0.29 -1.55
      Senna 300 Stimulant laxatives 852 0.35 0.55 0.14 -1.44
      Magnesium aspartate 0 Magnesium 3 0.00 0.55 0.40 -1.38
        Menthol 1 Topical local anaesthetics and antipruritics 16 0.06 0.45 0.29 -1.34