Drug utilization research in clinical practice.

This report describes the use of drug utilization studies in clinical practice, with special emphasis on future developments. It has been shown that pharmacy services affect prescribing patterns, have great potential for reducing health care costs, and are in a position to produce financial savings in drug therapy and drug use. However, it is essential to balance the drug utilization figures against the resulting outcome, and attention should be focused on the assessment of therapeutic results. To make therapeutic result assessment possible, end points need to be defined. Several examples of such end points are given and include incidence of nosocomial infections and postoperative wound infections. New parameters have been established to assess the severity of the illness and to follow the effect of drugs on the disease process in the form of an Index of Disease Activity (IDA). IDAs have been prepared for Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis. It then becomes possible to link drug utilization data with a drug's influence on a disease, making drug utilization research a recognized discipline within the medical field.