Improving viable low cost generic medication prescription rate in primary care pediatric practice

The pediatric clinics of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (MSU-CHM) consist of academic pediatricians serving two clinics with a patient population of 5200. The internal quality measures published by the MSU health team had consistently indicated our generic medications prescription rate to be very low, with an average of about 21% for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011. There was an earnest need to increase our generic medication prescription rates, which is considered an indicator of good practice. The stakeholders identified were physicians, nurses, care managers, and the health information technology (HIT) team. The purpose of the project was to increase the prescribing rate of viable low cost and approved generic medications for the patients of the MSU-CHM general pediatric clinics. The stakeholders regularly met every few months to work on increasing the generic medication prescription rates based on the PDSA cycle. Help was sought from HIT to identify and acquire the top 10 brand names the group was prescribing along with individual provider data. The team reviewed the brand names most prescribed, and made a recommendation that the best group to target were the stimulant medications, allergy and asthma medications, and other psychotropics. The HIT team was then requested to add the available generics for all stimulant medications, asthma medications, and others in the electronic medical record (EMR). They were also clearly marked for ease of use, for example: amphetamine-dextroamphetamine extended release "generic for Adderall XR." It was decided that providers would prescribe all stimulants as a generic, unless not available, and nurses would change each brand name of stimulants to a generic every time they refilled a medicine, based on a protocol outlining the appropriate generic medications corresponding to the respective brand names. The physicians and nurses were also urged to discuss with the patients the substitution process and answer any questions from parents. Monthly reports were obtained from the HIT about our progress. After 12 months of implementing this project, the overall generic prescription rate increased from 20% at the end of first quarter 2012 to 53% at the end of 12 months, and 65.5% at the end of two years. This was well above the MSU health team (about six large group practices) primary care average of 34.6%. All brand name medication prescription rates were also decreased. This is a positive outcome for this project in a relatively short period of time, and a further plan will be to repeat the cycle and continue to improve on the generic prescription rate, thereby saving valuable dollars spent on health care.