PBAC compliance report
September 27, 2010
A SPECIAL committee
commissioned by the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Advisory Committee to
look into medicines compliance has
delivered its report, and is inviting
comments by the end of October.
The Compliance to Medicines
Working Group (CMWG) was set up
in Dec 2008, aiming to gather info
on methods for “evaluating and
interpreting evidence used to
support claims that combination
products improve consumer
compliance and health outcomes”.
The report, which is now online at
www.pbs.gov.au, identifies various
advantages and disadvantages of
compliance measurment methods,
including data on prescription refills
as implemented with the Pharmacy
Guild’s MedsIndex system.
“The major limitation of all such
observational studies is that,
because subjects are not
randomised, considerable potential
exists for bias due to unknown
confounders,” the report warns.
However the committee also
highlights the complexity of
measuring compliance, and
suggests that improved access to
PBS data that can be “linked to
other health datasets” would help.
The report also gives an overview
of relevant literature highlighting
the “complex and multifactorial”
relationship between compliance
and health outcomes.”
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