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Prototype Prescribing Outlier Dashboard for Chew Medical Practice

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 Chew Medical Practice is higher than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Buserelin 1 Prostate cancer and gonadorelin analogues 112 0.01 0.00 0.00 41.91
Aminophylline hydrate 3 Theophylline 3 1.00 0.09 0.17 5.48
Nicotine bitartrate 36 Nicotine dependence 237 0.15 0.00 0.03 5.26
Olsalazine sodium 29 Aminosalicylates 394 0.07 0.00 0.01 5.10
Dantrolene sodium 31 Skeletal muscle relaxants 110 0.28 0.02 0.05 5.06
Olodaterol 3 Selective beta(2)-agonists 1,108 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.97
Ferric maltol 15 Oral iron 818 0.02 0.00 0.00 4.85
Lanthanum carbonate 6 Phosphate binding agents 6 1.00 0.07 0.19 4.82
Dexamfetamine sulfate 41 CNS Stimulants and drugs used for ADHD 148 0.28 0.03 0.06 3.75
Exenatide 37 Other antidiabetic drugs 992 0.04 0.00 0.01 3.72

Prescribing where Chew Medical Practice is lower than most

BNF Chemical Chemical Items BNF Subparagraph Subparagraph Items Ratio Mean std Z_Score Plots
Theophylline 0 Theophylline 3 0.00 0.91 0.17 -5.48
    Hydralazine hydrochloride 0 Vasodilator antihypertensive drugs 4 0.00 0.85 0.28 -3.04
      Doxycycline hyclate 233 Tetracyclines 545 0.43 0.70 0.12 -2.15
      Famotidine 14 H2-Receptor antagonists 36 0.39 0.81 0.21 -2.01
      Estriol 70 Preparations for vaginal/vulval changes 852 0.08 0.45 0.20 -1.82
      Sertraline hydrochloride 1,437 Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors 4,774 0.30 0.46 0.09 -1.81
      Hydrocortisone 15 Copound haemorrhoidal preparations with corticosteroid 107 0.14 0.57 0.24 -1.76
      Lactulose 134 Osmotic laxatives 1,185 0.11 0.28 0.10 -1.73
      Amoxicillin 444 Broad-spectrum penicillins 603 0.74 0.85 0.07 -1.73
      Miconazole nitrate 14 Antifungal preparations 271 0.05 0.27 0.13 -1.69