May 1, 2008
DRUG UPDATES VIA EMAIL: JUST WHAT DOCTOR ORDERED At a time of heightened safety concems about prescription drugs, notices from pharmaceutical companies about warnings and label changes still typically come to doctors via an antiquated method: the US mail.
Besides taking too long to arrive, doctors say the notices often get buried in stacks of drug-company marketing materials or thrown out with junk mail.
Now, a nonprofit group called the iHealth Alliance is launching an online network that will email alerts to doctors who sign up. It is being operated by Medem Inc, a for-profit company founded in 1999 by the American Medical Association and six other medical societies.
To keep doctors from becoming overwhelmed by a barrage of emails, the alerts will be focused by specialty.
Until recently, drug companies felt bound by federal regulations, dating back to the pre-Intemet era, that described how to send these types of communications through a paper-based system. In 2006, the FDA issued guidance saying the rules were outdated and that it was acceptable for the messages to go out by email.
Drug makers will pay to use the new system, which will be free for doctors and won't include any drug-company marketing materials. Doctors who don't sign up for it will continue to receive the notifications through the mail.
After receiving email notifications, doctors will get updates by going to a Web site called the Health Care Notification Network, which will archive alerts for a year, and will record that the doctors have gone to the site to see the notices. The network will provide suggested language that doctors can forward to their patients, explaining the alerts in lay terms. And doctors will be able to hit buttons that will let them send feedback to the FDA or the manufacturers about patients' reactions to drugs. The network may also be used to send doctors information on major public-health emergencies or bioterroism alerts.