Journal of general internal medicine
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Multicenter Study
Improving physicians' knowledge of the costs of common medications and willingness to consider costs when prescribing.
To determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention designed to improve physicians' knowledge of drug costs and foster willingness to consider costs when prescribing. ⋯ Our brief educational intervention led to modest improvements in physicians' knowledge of medication costs and their willingness to consider costs when prescribing. Future research could incorporate more high-intensity strategies, such as outreach visits, and target specific prescribing behaviors.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible not only for approving drugs but also for monitoring their safety after they reach the market. The complete adverse event profile of a drug is not known at the time of approval because of the small sample size, short duration, and limited generalizability of pre-approval clinical trials. ⋯ Physicians are strongly encouraged to submit reports of adverse outcomes with suspect drugs to the FDA, and their reports make a difference. The FDA is strengthening its postmarketing surveillance with access to new data sources that have the potential to further improve the identification, quantification, and subsequent management of drug risk.