Pharmacoepidemiology--an Irish perspective.

The Irish healthcare system is a mixture of free, state-supported and private medicine. The state-supported General Medical Services (GMS) scheme maintains a large prescription database, which has been used to conduct pharmacoepidemiological studies in Ireland. The dataset is anonymized thus maintaining patient and prescriber confidentiality. Three recent studies using this data are described, two of which outline the effect of regulatory advice and the media on prescribing patterns and one which describes the development of an index of prescribing quality which may be applied to prescription data. The GMS prescription database is presently being complemented by a database for some 0.7 million people who seek reimbursement for prescriptions from individuals or families in excess of 42 Pounds per month which together will have an important role for the continued development of pharmacoepidemiology in Ireland.