When any form of policy - economic or otherwise - is intended to have an impact on pharmaceutical care, it is important to measure its intended (and possibly unintended) effects. The present chapter will consider methods that can be used to monitor those effects on both process and outcomes. Monitoring process involves a regular review of the activities that make up drug management and delivery programs, and that are intended to achieve policy objectives as regards to both health and expenditure; it is sometimes more clearly known as "internal" assessment. Monitoring the results, i.e. the outcomes, will show whether these policy objectives are being achieved; this is sometimes termed "external" assessment.Monitoring initially involves selecting particular indicators that can serve as measures of policy performance. Indicators of both process and outcomes are initially measured and then followed over the course of time. The information obtained can be compared against a predetermined target for each indicator providing a basis for the evaluation.
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