Drug Audit of Intravenous Anaesthetic Agents in Tertiary Care Hospital

Drug cost is essential component of anaesthesia pharmacoeconomics. Recently pharmacoeconomics has emerged to measure, compare and evaluate cost of drug therapy to health system and decide which strategies produce best outcomes for resources allocated. The present study was planned to find utilization of intravenous anaesthetic agents in a tertiary care hospital and to find the pharmacoeconomics related to utilized and un-utilized drug data.

Prospective observational study was conducted for 3 months and 200 cases were recorded undergoing surgical procedures under general anaesthesia only. Intravenous drugs were considered excluding inhalational anaesthetics. Data for drug utilized and un-utilized was collected. Cost estimation was done.

Thiopentone sodium was frequently used intravenous inducing anaesthetic agent in 75% of patients. On average 6.5 drugs were prescribed per patient as pre-anaesthetic and intravenous inducing anaesthetic medications. 100% of drugs were prescribed by generic name, 92.30% were from National Essential Drug List. Amongst intravenous anaesthetic agents maximum wastage was associated with propofol of about 36.59% and in pre-anaesthetics, wastage was maximum for atropine 79% followed by glycopyrrolate 45.95%, pentazocine 45.95%. The cost of wasted drugs for study duration was 29.82% (Rs. 10,276.25) of the total cost of drugs was loaded (Rs.34458.84). Of this, the cost of wastage of vecuronium was maximum being 16.82% (Rs.1728) of the total cost wastage, followed by rocuronium 15.38% (Rs.1580.80), glycopyrrolate 15.22% (Rs.1564), and neostigmine 10.95% (Rs.1125.12). The cost of wasted drug per case was maximum for rocuronium being Rs.158.08 and least for ketamine Rs. 1.18.

There is need to formulate indicators for intravenous anaesthetic agents utilization. The most commonly prescribed drug glycopyrrolate is still not in National Essential Drug List. The judicious use of these drugs and appropriate measures can effectively decrease the cost in terms of un-utilized drugs.