Study On The Control Of Hospital Drugs Cost By Pharmaceutical Economics

The last two decades have witnessed a rapid rise of medical expense worldwide,among which the drug costs contribute significantly to this rising trend. This issue hasalready become a social focus confronted by most governments. It is estimated thatdrug cost account for10%to20%medical cost in western countries, however, theircontributions could be as high as50%to60%in China. In recent years, China’smedical administration agencies, together with the National Development and ReformCommission, have made efforts to reduce the finical burdens associated with highdrug costs, by reducing the drug price in a national wide for more than20times.However, these efforts have not led to a substantial reduction in drug costs.Considering the fact that drug costs in the hospital pharmacy account for a majority oftotal medical expense, it is conceivable that a reduction in drug costs in hospitalpharmacy would result in a corresponding decrease in total drug costs. Therefore, thepurpose of the present study was to build a hospital-based drug cost control modelbased on the concept of pharmacoeconomics, aiming to effectively reduce hospitalpharmacy associated drug costs.First, based on the principle and method of pharmacoeconomics, we made aneconomic evaluation of diagnosis and treatment options for the doctors, which couldprovide a scientific, effective and economic reference. For this purpose, we analyzedtwo clinically common-used methods for the treatment of type2diabetes (reinforcedsubcutaneous injection of insulin and insulin pump for pumping insulin), and threecommonly used drugs for the treatment of acute cerebral infarction.Second, based on a daily-cost-limit measurement, we analyzed the method oforal hypoglycemic drugs use in a tertiary hospital outpatient service, and evaluated therationality of the doctors’ performance in their daily clinical practice, in order tofurther standardize the doctor’s drug use and reduce drug costs.Third, in the process of hospital drug directory adjustment, we introduced theprinciple and method of pharmacoeconomics. This method would helpful for choosingeffect-reliable and cost-effective drugs, and presumably reducing the drug costs.Fourth, the clinical pathway management is the development trend of hospital quality management. We tested the effectiveness of introducing the principle andmethod of pharmacoeconomics in a particular clinical pathway, which provides amodel for choosing cost-effective drugs and to improve the drug efficacy, therebyreducing the drug costs.Fifth, as our nation is currently covered by the Basic Drug Security System, theintroduction of the principle and method of pharmacoeconomics during basic drugselection process would substantially reduce the drug costs in medical practice.Drug cost control is one of the focuses of hospital quality management. However,many issues would arise during this process, due to the practicing difficulties ofobtaining professional knowledge on medical specialty. The introduction of the basicknowledge of pharmacoeconomics in hospital drug cost control could be ofconsiderable value in evaluating drug economy as well as drug efficacy, which fulfillsthe special characteristics and developmental profile of the medical and healthorganizations. Therefore, our results show that pharmacoeconomics has a promisingrole in hospital drug cost control.