[Drug utilization at the University Hospital]

With the aim of establishing guidelines on the proper use of drugs and defined daily doses (DDD) for Brazil, a system for collecting data and analyzing the demand for and consumption of drugs is being implemented at the University Hospital of the University of São Paulo. To this end, statistics were drawn from the pharmacy and from medical records. The products standardized by the hospital using the alphanumeric code (based on the official structure of the Ministry of Health) were identified, with five levels of information. The first, expressed in letters, divides the drugs into 14 major groups, defined in accordance with specializations in medical services. The subsequent levels identify the anatomical-pharmacological subgroups, classes, active principles, and dosage forms. The system makes possible access to different levels of drug classification, and allows for introducing changes to the list of standardized drugs without affecting the already-recorded information. This study on the use of drugs, in a standard health care environment, will make it possible to draw important conclusions as to the relationship between the demand profile and the morbidity profile.