PPC News

Collaborative, report paves way for state, federal evidence-based prescribing efforts

July 28, 2008

Hallowell, ME —A report issued by Prescription Policy Choices offers creative and cost-effective guidance for those looking to build prescriber education programs with limited resources. Forged in collaboration between Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the Academic Detailing Planning Initiative report outlines ways that policymakers and health care leaders can provide evidence-based education about the safest and most effective drugs to prescribers. The report was released on Friday at the National Conference of State Legislatures Annual Meeting and is available at www.policychoices.org.

The Academic Detailing Planning Initiative, begun earlier this year, convened key stakeholders, including consumer advocates, state medical society leadership, policy makers, and experts from existing academic detailing programs in the US and abroad. Stakeholders explored best practices, opportunities for pooling resources, and ways to build on the experience of current programs in Pennsylvania, Vermont, South Carolina, Canada and Australia.

Academic detailing, also known as prescriber support and education, sends trained clinicians to physicians’ offices to present the best available, most up-to-date scientific evidence on prescription drugs. This objective approach brings a much-needed balance to the marketing messages that doctors constantly receive from the more than 90,000 pharmaceutical sales representatives employed in the US.

“The volume of requests for information on how prescriber education programs work to improve prescribing has been extraordinary,” states Ann Woloson, Executive Director of Prescription Policy Choices, the lead organization for the initiative. “The report really pulls together all of the information. We’re pleased to provide it to policy makers and others interested in helping to make the best evidenced-based science available to prescibers.”

“This collaborative effort to expand prescriber education is good news for patients, who hear everyday about clinical trials that come up short and new questions about the safety of their drugs,” said Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Prescription Project, a Boston-based group that promotes evidence-based prescribing and participated in the initiative. “Helping doctors cut through the industry’s marketing machine to get the facts about the safest, most effective drugs is a big step toward better medicine, and will help Northern New Englanders save, both as taxpayers and customers at the pharmacy counter.”

The Academic Detailing Planning Initiative is part of growing momentum surrounding prescriber education. In 2007, Maine passed legislation authorizing the state to develop an academic detailing program and Vermont approved a large expansion of its current program. In 2008, these legislative trailblazers were followed by the District of Columbia, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. A federal bill, the Independent Drug Education Act of 2008, which would provide a grant pool for academic detailing programs, awaits introduction in Congress.