Advanced Drug Utilization Research: The Conduct of Real-World Drug Utilization Studies: Development And Evaluation of Interventions to Improve the Quality of Medication Use

‎1. Course Aim ‎
This session will be based on the real-world conduct of drug utilisation (DU) studies, with specific examples to ‎provide participants with skills and working knowledge in the conduct of advanced drug utilisation methods ‎and development and evaluation of interventions to improve prescribing. This interactive educational program ‎includes presentations, question and answer sessions, and discussion with the faculty panel. The session will ‎involve participants in the:‎
‎1.‎ Application of principles derived from Health Services and Implementation Research to the design of a ‎clinical practice intervention
‎2.‎ Designs for evaluating the effect of clinical or policy interventions, in particular time-series analysis
‎3.‎ Use of administrative/prescribing/dispensing data to assess (changes in) the quality of medication ‎prescribing

‎2. Requisites Statement ‎
All levels of expertise but specifically this course is targeted at:‎
‎1.‎ Members of the DUR / HSR SIG
‎2.‎ Graduate students interested in advanced drug utilisation research methods
‎3.‎ Those interested in quality development and implementation research, knowledge transfer, ‎evaluation of interventions, health and medicines policy areas, health funds and third-party payers
‎4.‎ Clinical pharmacoepidemiologists, health service planners, clinical guidelines developers, health ‎practitioners

‎3. Course Objectives‎
‎1.‎ To gain understanding of the planning, implementation and evaluation requirements for a DU ‎intervention
‎2.‎ To achieve insight into advanced methods to evaluate DU interventions and appropriateness of ‎prescribing ‎
‎3.‎ To develop an understanding of the significance and applications of DU research to translate findings ‎at various levels of the health system for improving health outcomes

‎4. Syllabus Outline‎
• Design and evaluation of interventions to improve quality of medicine use by Katja Taxis
• Segmented times-series analysis and ARIMA modelling in DUR, including some hands-on exercises by ‎Mina Tadrous
• Challenges when assessing quality of prescribing – short intro plus assignments related to specific ‎issues (e.g. assessment of inappropriate polypharmacy or deprescribing) by Petra Denig
• Wrap up and overview of other DUR activities during ICPE by Lotte Rasmussen