Prescriber Education
Evidence-based prescribing must be informed by sound science. The Pew Prescription Project has focused on advancing policies and programs to ensure that physicians and other prescribers can obtain high-quality drug information throughout their professional careers.
Academic medical centers
Academic medical centers (AMCs) form the intellectual core of medicine, training future doctors and researchers, and establishing standards that guide practicing physicians in the wider community. The Pew Prescription Project has worked with AMCs to advance “best practice” policies including: banning on gifts and meals from industry, ensuring consulting contracts are fair remuneration for legitimate services; prohibiting long-term speaking relationships that function as marketing; and limiting industry funding of continuing medical education. The project also partnered with American Medical Student Association to create the PharmFree Scorecard, an national assessment of industry relations policies at 150 U.S. medical schools.
Ongoing prescriber education
The Pew Prescription Project supports initiatives to provide physicians and other prescribers with alternate, evidence-based sources for up-to-date information on drugs and therapies. One approach to physician education is “academic detailing,” a method in which trained clinicians visit doctors in their offices to provide unbiased clinical information. The Pew Prescription Project supports federal funding for academic detailing, including through the Independent Drug Education and Outreach Act.
- National Coalition for Appropriate Prescribing (NCAP)
- Comments to FDA concerning draft guidance on off-label journal reprints
- "Defining the Boundaries;" presented by Barbara Barnes, UPMC
- Tool Kit: Continuing Medical Education
- Tool Kit: Drug and Medical Device Procurement
- Tool Kit: Ghostwriting and Speakers Bureaus
- Tool Kit: Gifts, Meals and Entertainment
- Tool Kit: Samples
- Tool Kit: Vendor Relations
