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Blog series: Guest Blogs

Blog posts in the series Guest Blogs

  1. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenPrescribing

    High Dose Dexamethasone

    A guest blog from Calum Polwart (Twitter @ShinyBlackShoe)

    At the Bennett Institute we value openness and transparency as we believe open discussion of ideas and methods are the key ingredients for high quality data analysis. We think it is unhelpful that so much NHS data analysis is outsourced, or done behind closed doors, as this prevents coalface clinicians from engaging with data and sharing their expertise and insights. We build OpenPrescribing.net, not just for ourselves, but for anyone to explore NHS prescribing data. This democratisation of prescribing data removes gatekeepers and barriers to accessing the data, allows anyone to scrutinise prescribing and produces new insights.

  2. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenPrescribing

    How I use OpenPrescribing in my practice as a GP

    A guest blog from Dr. Kevin Barrett (Twitter @DrKBarrett).

    Last week the British Journal of General Practice published our paper on unsafe prescribing of methotrexate. As part of the publication Dr. Kevin Barrett talked to BJGP (see video below) about how he used OpenPrescribing to identify potentially unsafe prescribing in his practice and has also written a short blog below.

    When I first started as a GP trainee in 1999 electronic prescribing was a relatively recent innovation. The practice formulary was built by hand, and prescribing analysis only occurred when paper Prescribing Analysis and CosT (PACT) reports were sent to the practice. These evolved into ePACT reports, but these still required time to decipher. With the advent of Primary Care Trust (PCT) and then Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) employed pharmacists who had the time to analyse the data and present practice- and prescriber-level data to us at a range of meetings we became used to comparing our prescribing data to our peers. Electronic prescribing aids are a useful measure to help guide our prescribing and keep us up to date with the ever-changing local and national recommendations.

  3. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenSAFELY

    Conducting Research Using OpenSAFELY: My Experience of the Co-pilot Service

    Rachel Seeley is the Head of Analytics at PrescQIPP CIC and has recently completed a project in OpenSAFELY on the safer use of anticoagulant medication. In this guest blog, Rachel describes her experience with using the OpenSAFELY platform and our co-pilot programme.

  4. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenSAFELY

    Using electronic health records and open science in the COVID-19 pandemic

    We recently presented on behalf of our team (grp-EHR) at an open science workshop, hosted by the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge. This was a great opportunity for us to reflect on our team’s experiences using OpenSAFELY, and more broadly embracing open and team science approaches to our work.

  7. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenSAFELY

    Updates of OpenSAFELY Research on COVID-19 Therapeutics

    In this guest blog, Bang Zheng and Laurie Tomlinson from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine describe some of their lastest work on the comparative effectiveness and safety of currently recommended COVID-19 therapeutics in the community settings.

  8. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenSAFELY

    Understanding Repeat Antibiotic Prescribing in the Pandemic: Insights On Health Inequalities

    The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped many aspects of healthcare, including how antibiotics are prescribed in primary care settings. In this guest blog, Professor Diane Ashiru-Oredope lead pharmacist for antimicrobial resistance at UK Health Security Agency and our own Brian MacKenna, share some insights on repeat antibiotic prescribing and the link to health inequalities from a recent UK Health Security Agency analysis using OpenSAFELY.

  10. Posted
    Categories
    • OpenPrescribing

    Prescribing of Lidocaine Plasters

    In this guest blog, Molly Mattsson describes how we compared lidocaine prescribing reduction policy implementation in Ireland and England.