(EDU-M6) Improving Drug Utilization with Prescriber Feedback Reports

Prescriber feedback reports are effective interventions to improve quality of care and resource utilization. Despite potential benefits, design and implementation choices have a large effect on whether efforts are effective. Most feedback reports do not control for patient factors, which confounds the assessment of differences in clinical practice between providers. Without adjustment, physicians dismiss reports by saying, “my patients are sicker” or “my patients are different.” Typical reports don’t tell providers which peer differences are meaningful, potentially issuing the same flag to distant outliers as every other provider below the average. One institution developed a series of all-payer, unblinded-to-peer, statistically-adjusted, multidisciplinary reports and will share successes and failures, with a focus on pharmacy variation reports.