Even though commissions for effective pharmacotherapy are related to the socialist health care system in our mind, the Netherlands experience proves that these commissions may be an important agent in a health insurance system. Pharmaceutical commissions came into being during the 1970’ and 1980’ as a voluntary initiative of Dutch chemists aimed at improving the health care quality since the prescription decision making process of physicians was not rational all the time. The paper further describes the utilization of prescription data for the support of effective pharmacotherapy. The prescription amount, cost and quality is measured in the Netherlands and the information is provided to particular physicians. It is possible to measure the quality indirectly by means of so called prescription indicators which are as follows: indicators of specific medicaments, indicators of specific diseases and indicators on the part of patients. Some practical issues related to the support of effective pharmacotherapy in the Slovak Republic and Czech Republic are discussed and proposals for solution are offered.

        Key words: support of effective pharmacotherapy, pharmaceutical commissions, prescription analyses, decision making process of a general practitioner, support of health care quality