Ensuring quality use of medicines- engaging with PBMs and PMBs.

Abstract

This postscript to the Quality Use of Medicines series of reviews will look back at the principles put forward in the first article, while considering how these should be deployed by the family practitioner in the current practice milieu. The articles in the series have tried to convey how the application of evidence can promote the “therapeutically sound and cost-effective use of drugs – what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the “rational use of medicines. The approach suggested in that first paper was the WHO “P-drug process – a systematic way to select and apply medicines, taking into account the efficacy, safety, suitability and cost of different options. Can this process help the individual practitioner to ensure the quality use of medicines in the face of changing circumstances? (SA Fam Pract 2004;46(1): 43-46)