Introduction:

high cost medications (HCM) are new highly specific medications and used in complex clinical conditions as in treatment of some types of cancer, diseases that compromise the immunological system, inflammatory or infections disorders.

Objective:

to determine the fulfillment of the consumption plan of high-cost medications in the province of Matanzas in the period 2012-2017.

Materials and methods:

a descriptive, observational, follow up study on the fulfillment of the consumption plan of high-cost medication by the population of Matanzas2012 year to 2017. The universe of drugs included in this category was analyzed on the bases of the drug-supplying database used by the Drug Commercializing Enterprise (ENCOMED in Spanish). The studied variables were identified.

Results:

it was observed a growing increase of high-cost drugs use during all the period; in 88.9 % of them the consumption has been above the planning made in the province. The costs increased in 233 %, and besides that in the prescriptions made of these drugs there were found problems like empty boxes, antibiotics without diagnostic impression and omissions of the drug presentation forms and/or the prescribed doses.

Conclusions:

the consumption of many high-cost drugs was higher than the planning made in the province of Matanzas for the analyzed period. It implied a significant increase of the budget destined for these aims and difficulties were found in the fulfillment of the terms for prescribing these drugs.

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