We are familiar with the audit. In case of prescription, it refers Prescription audit. Each prescription comes to pharmacist before medication, naturally it is first (primary) check point of prescription. Proficiency of pharmacists plays vital roles towards the patient safety and clinical aspect. The patient safety is the prime factor in clinical field. Now days we see that majority of the prescriptions are incomplete,irrational and erroneous irrespective of qualification and clinical experience of prescriber. Poly-pharmacy is the major issue. Especially antimicrobial and proton pump inhibitor or H 2 blockers are the great concern.

The Government of India through the national health policy (2017) emphasize the importance of rational use of medicine including pharmacovilance in healthcare setting. Rational user medicine means that patient receive medication appropriate to their clinical needs in dose that's needed the requirement for an adequate period and lowest cost to them and their community (WHO 1985) (1).

Irrational prescribing is a global problem. The emerging data reveal that prescribing errors are common and can affect between 4.2 to 82% of the prescriptions (2). Prescription audit is part of the holistic clinical audit which was defined in a paper Principles for Best Practice in Clinical Audit as "a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change"(3). Audit was first used by Florence Nightingale in 1854 to prevent post-surgical mortality.

One of the prescription audit's core principles is that it is not a 'fault-finding exercise' but a 'fact-finding exercise'. The emphasis is not on 'who went wrong', buton identifying 'why did it happen' in terms of system's problem; and 'what can be done to prevent its recurrence and bring about the improvement'. Therefore it becomes important that the prescription audits are conducted in a candid and transparent environment with no "fear" of punitive actions (4). Routine auditing and feedback is necessary for imbibing safe prescribing practices. Prescribers need to be made aware about the errors and the recommended guidelines

Objectives of Prescription audit & Pharmacist:

The following Key points are the objective of Prescription audit and role of pharmacistimplies within.

Chief Pharmacist/Senior most pharmacists managing dispensary and Medical Store maybe vital member in an audit committee at different levels, i.e. DH, SDH, CHC, and PHC. Itis not new but modified role of pharmacist like role of pharmacist in pharmacytherapeutic committee.



One of the tools is legibility of prescriptions. Prescription legibility was graded on asubjective scale by two independent investigators. Prescriptions were graded as:

This could be cent per cent rectified through e-prescription as machine designed orprogramme base. There is no scope of individual manuscript.





WHO core prescribing indicators which are as (5)

Objectives of Prescription Audit includes

Professionally sound pharmacists are the right personnel in this regard. There areadequate number of pharmacists in hospital services under the department of Health &family welfare.



Expected Outcomes of Prescription Audit:



It helps to:

The role of pharmacist is expanding exponentially with emergence of new generationpharmacist processing higher qualification like (doctor of pharmacy, Master of pharmacyetc.) that play vital role in direct care of patient(6).



Engagement of pharmacist in Prescription Audit will make the programme galasuccess certainly. Several statutory bodies like Pharmacy council of India, Central DrugsControl & Standard Organisation suggest the same. Practically they are the rightpersonnel to fulfil the objectives.

COMMITTED TO HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.



“National health policy makes a historical movement in our endeavour to create a healthyIndia where everyone has access to quality Health Care’’--- Narendra Modi, Prime Minister





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