Figure 2

Generic example of a Personalised Prescribing Profile. The Personalised Prescribing Profile constituted the audit and feedback mechanism in MAAUI. Every physician in the intervention arm of the study was sent a Personalised Prescribing Profile by mail. a/ Side 1 of the profile provides a brief introduction to the purpose of the profile and lists the criteria for appropriate prescribing of coxibs, traditional NSAIDs (referred to as "NSAIDs" throughout the Profile), and traditional NSAID/GPA combination therapy. b/ On side 2, a bar chart illustrates for the physician his/her recent prescribing pattern of chronic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory therapies. The chart includes the number of patients to whom the physician has prescribed long-term treatment with each of the anti-inflammatory therapies between August 1999 and September 2000 and the proportion of these patients for whom the prescription was appropriate ("Recommended Treatment") or inappropriate ("Not a recommended treatment"). The chart also provides averaged statistics on appropriate and inappropriate prescribing for the physicians in the same geographical area and for primary care physicians in Manitoba overall.