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Prototype Prescribing Outlier Dashboard for Hungerford Surgery

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 Hungerford Surgery is higher than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Methylprednisolone sodium succinate 1 Use of corticosteroids 450 0.00 0.00 0.00 18.79
Other oral iron preparations 31 Oral iron 369 0.08 0.00 0.01 13.18
Low protein mixes 54 Foods for special diets 188 0.29 0.01 0.02 11.55
Low protein cakes 9 Foods for special diets 188 0.05 0.00 0.01 8.39
Sulindac 3 Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs 621 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.65
Spironolactone with loop diuretics 3 Potassium sparing diuretics and compounds 9 0.33 0.01 0.08 4.28
Bromfenac 3 Ocular diagnostic & peri-operative prepn & photodynamic tt 3 1.00 0.09 0.21 4.25
Other eye tear/lubricant/astringent preparations 10 Tear deficiency, eye lubricant/astringent 104 0.10 0.01 0.02 4.16
Adapalene 39 Topical preparations for acne 110 0.35 0.11 0.07 3.52
Dulaglutide 156 Other antidiabetic drugs 641 0.24 0.06 0.05 3.50

Prescribing where Hungerford Surgery is lower than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Acamprosate calcium 1 Alcohol dependence 9 0.11 0.83 0.31 -2.33
Hypromellose 10 Tear deficiency, eye lubricant/astringent 104 0.10 0.45 0.15 -2.32
Salicylic acid 0 Preparations for warts and calluses 3 0.00 0.67 0.31 -2.17
    Nicotine 0 Nicotine dependence 12 0.00 0.65 0.33 -1.95
      Sodium cromoglicate 14 Other anti-inflammatory preparations 49 0.29 0.64 0.19 -1.88
      Amlodipine 1,340 Calcium-channel blockers 2,346 0.57 0.76 0.11 -1.64
      Folic acid 375 Drugs used in megaloblastic anaemias 840 0.45 0.69 0.16 -1.57
      Azithromycin 7 Macrolides 227 0.03 0.25 0.15 -1.51
      Clonidine hydrochloride 0 Prophylaxis of migraine 9 0.00 0.37 0.26 -1.45
        Benzoyl peroxide and clindamycin phosphate 20 Topical preparations for acne 110 0.18 0.38 0.13 -1.44