Hi Oliver Libby is my brother in-laws sister. Very interesting lady to Google
Your post reminds me of the Mt Twain rule - Lies, Dammed lies and statistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics I have a great faith in "Benfords law" and have used it in auditing waffle filled accounts of banks, supermarkets and some other large business. Benfords law is also very useful in cutting the crud out of biased statistical analyses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benfords_law Regards James -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Oliver Frank Sent: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 10:55 PM To: General Practice Computing Group Talk Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] RE: Potentially inappropriate prescribing amongAustralian veterans Ken Harvey wrote: > Roughead EE, Anderson B, Gilbert AL. Potentially inappropriate > prescribing among Australian veterans and war widows/widowers. Internal > Medicine Journal 2007; 37 (6): 402-405. > > ABSTRACT: This study examined the extent of potentially inappropriate > medicine, as defined by explicit criteria, dispensed to Australian > veterans using the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Pharmacy > Claims database. > > Twenty-one per cent of the 192 363 veterans aged 70 years, with an > eligible gold card, were dispensed at least one potentially > inappropriate medicine in the first 6 months of 2005. About ten years ago, I attended a seminar at which Libby Roughead presented the results of some research that she'd done to see whether telling GPs that NSAIDs cause peptic ulcers had reduced the number of admissions to hospital with perforated peptic ulcer. The finding was that the number of admissions to hospital with perforated peptic ulcer did reduce after the campaign to tell GPs how bad NSAIDs were. The researchers were obviously pleased that they had saved a number of people from this serious adverse effect of NSAIDs. During the question time, I stood up and asked whether the researchers had measured or even asked how many arthritic oldies now were lying awake at night in pain from their arthritis, how many had stopped bowling, how many could not walk to their letter box at all or without significant pain, and so on. The answer was no. All they had done was to measure the number of admissions to hospital with perforated peptic ulcer. They had made no attempt to measure changes in patient's quality of life, ability to perform their daily activities or use of other medications. I was not impressed with this study, because I believe that it is relatively easy to change GPs' prescribing by telling them that drug X or drug class Y can have serious adverse effects. The hard part is if GPs are discouraged from prescribing medications that are useful and increase patients' quality of life, it is important to examine the other intended and unintended consequences of that change. I believe that the withdrawal of TGA approval for quinine for the use of cramps falls into this category. Little old ladies (and men) who had taken quinine for years and found it top be the only effective treatment were suddenly told that it is dangerous and may kill them, and we now have to tell them this, but explain to them that this is unlikely to happen after ten or twenty years of use. -- Oliver Frank, general practitioner 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens, South Australia 5086 Phone 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 Mobile 0407 181 683 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
