Drug utilization review in the managed care environment.

Traditional drug use evaluation (DUE) and Medicaid drug utilization review (DUR) prototypes do not meet the needs of managed care organizations. yet, creating entirely new systems for measuring quality drug use in managed care, such as HEDIS, needlessly discards the good clinical foundations already built in the other health care settings. A better solution would be for managed care to apply its hallmark traits, namely state-of-the-art electronic data management systems, integrated health care system interchange, and strong customer communication, to make the DUR process better. A strong union between clinical criteria and sophisticated health care management can revolutionize the DUR/DUE process.