As NHS primary and secondary care services come together through integrated care systems (ICS) new opportunities are being created to maximise savings on medicines and adopt best prescribing practices.
Sharing data across integrated care systems will be an essential tool in achieving these aims. Rx-info’s Combine makes this possible for the first time.
The Combine medicines data analysis tool uses Rx-info expertise in data standardisation and medicines data software so that all ICS prescribing practice is reportable and can be analysed and understood.
Data can be reported all the way to presentation level and shows the actual price paid (rather than indicative prices).
The data can answer all key ICS medicines metrics such as:
- New technology uptake
- Biosimilar uptake impacts
- Antimicrobial stewardship markers
This means that the spend and prescribing practices covering both primary and secondary care can be monitored and compared, demonstrating where savings can be made and improved practices adopted, for the benefit of patients.
It will also enable health care practitioners to benchmark prescribing practices and share best practice.
ICSs have different hospital pharmacy system types in addition to ePACT data but Combine is able to “translate” these data to get consistent, common outputs. It also takes into consideration that some secondary care prescriptions have different VAT cases.
Software already developed by Rx-info, Define and Refine, have helped hospital pharmacies reduce the prescribing of unnecessary antibiotic medicines, cutting the risk of antimicrobial resistance. Combine extends this potential across the whole of an ICS.
NHS drugs spend accounts for more than £21bn of the health service budget, split almost evenly between primary care at £10.2bn and hospitals at £11.1bn in FY24/25. Through the creation of ICS and the use of Combine it will be possible to better manage these costs while improving patient outcomes.