This is a challenging time for everyone, particularly for the health professionals at
the front line of New Zealand’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bpacnz understands the pressure that primary
care is under and we hope that by continuing to deliver our usual resources, it will provide a sense of normality. We
have been publishing the Annual Report for prescribers for the past 17 years and this year should be no different. From
the team at bpacnz we wish you all the best for the weeks and months ahead.
The bpacnz Annual Report provides individualised and practice data on pharmaceuticals dispensed in the community
for any primary care prescriber registered with us who prescribed to at least 50 patients and had more than 249 prescriptions
dispensed; this includes nurse practitioners, nurse prescribers and for the first time, pharmacist prescribers. Aggregated
reports are also provided for DHB and PHO facilitators.
If you are a primary care prescriber log
in here to view your personalised report.
Never had an Annual Report but want one?
If you are a primary care prescriber but have never received an Annual Report before, you may already have one waiting
for you at My Bpac. To log in to My Bpac click here; data can be accessed via the ‘Reports’ tab
on the dashboard. Reports are also available throughout the year relating to specific topics, e.g. SSRI or PPI prescribing.
If you were a primary care prescriber in 2019 but do not have a My Bpac account, go to www.bpac.org.nz/signup to
create an account and email [email protected] to request that an Annual Report
be created for you.
If you are in a DHB or PHO pharmaceutical facilitation role but have not previously accessed
an Annual Report, you will need to create a My Bpac account and complete an authorisation request. Email [email protected] for
further details.
This year the Annual Report includes:
- A discussion of two key prescribing issues covered by bpacnz in 2019:
- A pharmacological profile of patients with type 2 diabetes
- Antimicrobial stewardship: are we improving?
- Demographics of the patient populations prescribed for
- 20 most used and highest cost medicines – nationally
- Dispensing rates for ten commonly prescribed medicines, relative to the national rate of prescribing
- Dispensing data, including the volume and cost of the 250 most frequently dispensed medicines, plus an additional
30 medicines of interest, e.g. metoprolol tartrate and norfloxacin.
- National and comparator prescribing data averaged from ten primary care patient populations with similar demographics
What’s new in this year’s report?
The Annual Report now provides data on the most frequently dispensed medicines by calendar year. This is a change from
previous years where the reporting period was 1 July, to 30 June.
The two focus topics in the report (key messages) include individualised prescribing data for primary care prescribers,
practices, PHOs and DHBs.
A new feature of this year’s report is a comparison of individual data for ten commonly prescribed medicines, relative
to the national rate of prescribing. These medicines were selected as they have relatively clear messages about appropriate
prescribing, i.e. they should either be prescribed more or less. For example, we would like to see more prescribing of
allopurinol, metformin and fluticasone compared to the current average, but less prescribing of oxycodone, tramadol, quetiapine
and zopiclone. Their inclusion provides prescribers with an opportunity to reflect on how their prescribing, relative
to national rates, is influenced by the demographics and clinical characteristics of their patient population.
