The ACG-Rx system, based on the unique Rx-MG categories, is an Rx-based risk adjustment tool (NDC, ATC, Read code) that can be used as a predictive model and to understand patterns of medication use. Pharmaceutical utilization is a proxy for underlying morbidity. The John Hopkins ACG case mix system, Rx-PM model, is a grouping logic that uses drug utilization to measure the severity of the underlying morbidity, the therapeutic goal of medication use, and the duration of treatment to present pharmacy data in a new perspective that had not been available previously.
The tool can be used for disease/case management, profiling (population and provider) and forecasting pharmacy and total costs for large groups. The analysis included Sweden's entire population (9 million persons) and their usage of drugs (6.2 million patients annually). This resulted in 29 million combinations of patients and used ATC-codes for each year. Results have been grouped for the periods 2006, 2007 and 2008. The analysis represents an annual cost of 24-25 Billion SEK (approx. 25 Mill Euro). The grouping went well in practice without any coding issues.