Static outliers for Blaydon Gp Led Practice

There is substantial variation in prescribing behaviours, across various different areas of medicine. Some variation can be explained by demographic changes, or local policies or guidelines, but much of the remaining variation is less easy to explain. At OpenPrescribing we are piloting a number of data-driven approaches to identify unusual prescribing and collect feedback on this prescribing to inform development of new tools to support prescribers and organisations to audit and review prescribing.

This report has been developed to automatically identify prescribing patterns at a chemical level which are furthest away from “typical prescribing” and can be classified as an “outlier”. We calculate the number of prescriptions for each chemical in the BNF coding system using the BNF subparagraph as a denominator, for prescriptions dispensed between April 2021 and August 2021. We then calculate the mean and standard deviation for each numerator and denominator pair across all practices/CCGs/PCNs/STPs. From this we can calculate the “z-score”, which is a measure of how many standard deviations a given practice/CCG/PCN/STP is from the population mean. We then rank your “z-scores” to find the top 5 results where prescribing is an outlier for prescribing higher than its peers and those where it is an outlier for prescribing lower than its peers.

It is important to remember that this information was generated automatically and it is therefore likely that some of the behaviour is warranted. This report seeks only to collect information about where this variation may be warranted and where it might not. Our full analytical method code is openly available on GitHub here.

The DataLab is keen to hear your feedback on the results. You can do this by completing the following survey or emailing us at ebmdatalab@phc.ox.ac.uk. Please DO NOT INCLUDE IDENTIFIABLE PATIENT information in your feedback. All feedback is helpful, you can send short or detailed feedback.

Prescribing where Blaydon Gp Led Practice is higher than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score
Dexpanthenol	8	Emollients	95	0.08	0.00	0.01	13.46
Bepanthen Nappy Care 5% ointment : 8
Erythromycin stearate	2	Macrolides	25	0.08	0.00	0.01	8.63
Erythromycin stearate 250mg tablets : 2
Dexamethasone	13	Use of corticosteroids	65	0.20	0.03	0.03	6.49
Dexamethasone 2mg/5ml oral solution sugar free : 2 Dexamethasone 500microgram tablets : 6 Dexamethasone 2mg tablets : 5
Acetazolamide	5	Treatment of glaucoma	39	0.13	0.01	0.02	6.08
Acetazolamide 250mg tablets : 5
Quinagolide hydrochloride	4	Bromocriptine and other dopaminergic drugs	4	1.00	0.04	0.16	5.95
Quinagolide 75microgram tablets : 4

Prescribing where Blaydon Gp Led Practice is lower than most

BNF Chemical	Chemical Items	BNF Subparagraph	Subparagraph Items	Ratio	Mean	std	Z_Score
Calcipotriol	17	Preparations for psoriasis	34	0.50	0.87	0.08	-4.49
Calcipotriol 50micrograms/ml scalp solution : 2 Calcipotriol 0.005% / Betamethasone dipropionate 0.05% gel : 2 Calcipotriol 0.005% / Betamethasone dipropionate 0.05% oint : 3 Enstilar 50micrograms/g / 0.5 mg/g cutaneous foam : 3 Calcipotriol 50micrograms/g ointment : 7
Famotidine	0	H2-Receptor antagonists	1	0.00	0.78	0.23	-3.34

Cabergoline	0	Bromocriptine and other dopaminergic drugs	4	0.00	0.86	0.27	-3.16

Tamsulosin hydrochloride	148	Drugs for urinary retention	202	0.73	0.92	0.06	-3.05
Tamsulosin 400microgram modified-release capsules : 148
Senna	33	Stimulant laxatives	228	0.14	0.55	0.14	-2.93
Senna 7.5mg tablets : 33