NCT00788346

Reducing the Unnecessary Use of Heavily Marketed Medications: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Reducing Unnecessary Use of Heavily Marketed Medicines: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Computerized Prescribing Alerts and Clinician Education

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 257 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Boston Healthcare System · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Prescribing decisions by clinicians are often thought to be simple: a patient's clinical problem leads a prescriber to choose the optimal treatment. However, many factors other than the patient's condition affect prescribing decisions, including the marketing of pharmaceuticals. Clinicians are subjected to direct "detailing" by representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, advertisements in medical journals and requests for specific treatments from patients, who are increasingly exposed to direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. These influences, often based on biased or inaccurate information, contribute to a variety of problems in prescribing, including the unnecessary use of expensive, heavily marketed medications. Overcoming these influences requires innovative approaches. The movement toward widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) and electronic prescribing presents new opportunities to educate both clinicians and patients at the time of medication prescribing. This project, endorsed by the AHRQ-supported Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs; www.certs.hhs.gov) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), aims to test the effectiveness of computerized prescribing alerts and state-of-the-art educational outreach to reduce the unnecessary use of heavily marketed medications. A second goal is to improve clinicians' knowledge of industry marketing practices, so that they can more effectively assess information provided by drug companies. Thus, the study has two specific aims: Specific Aim 1: To assess whether computerized prescribing alerts linked electronically to patient educational material can reduce prescribing of heavily marketed medications. Specific Aim 2: To assess whether group academic detailing increases clinicians' knowledge about industry marketing practices and increases the effect of prescribing alerts.

Conditions

• Use of Sleep Medications

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Computerized alerts	Computerized Clinical Decision Support to clinician at the time of prescribing
BEHAVIORAL	Alerts Plus Detailing	Computerized Clinical Decision Support to clinician at the time of prescribing PLUS one group academic detailing session

Timeline

• Start date: 2007-03-01
• Primary completion: 2008-03-01
• Completion: 2008-03-01
• First posted: 2008-11-10
• Last updated: 2012-12-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States