Prescription monitoring in an Irish hospital.

The prescribing of medicines is an integral part of the provision of healthcare and represents a relatively safe, effective and inexpensive mode of treatment. Hospital prescribing is of importance not alone for patients but also for the impact that it has on the prescribing of drugs in the community. We conducted a 'snap-shot' study of 1,488 hospital prescriptions and assessed such areas as legibility, generic prescribing and drug dosage. The average number of active prescriptions per patient was 5.47 for medical in-patients and 5.05 for surgical in-patients. 5% of prescriptions were deemed illegible and the rate of generic prescribing was relatively low. However the rate of compliance with the hospital formulary was good. The spectrum of drugs prescribed changed significantly from a previous study performed in 1987. Continuous review of doctors' prescribing habits will ensure the safe and economic use of medications.