Pharmacotherapy quality improvement in the managed care setting.

Physician partnering, value-added relationships, and integrated delivery systems with risk/incentive arrangements are emerging in managed care. These arrangements require time-sensitive program information that can be used in continuous quality improvement programs. Components of any clinical intervention program designed to improve the quality of pharmacotherapy are on a continuum, from those that are primarily individual patient focused to those that are disease or system/process focused. Components include case management, patient profile review, brand to generic drug conversion, targeted therapeutic evaluations, provider profiling, and pharmacoeconomic analysis. All health care professionals involved in pharmacotherapy need to be involved in implementation of these quality improvement programs.