When doctors are choosing medications for patients, this study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that they do not have the evidence they need to make the best decisions they can for their patients’ individual needs.

This study is significant because it measures how little information doctors actually have at decision-time. Doctors are being measured on their outcomes. However, when it comes to one of their most important tools, medications, physicians don’t have the outcomes data they need.

New drugs are not consistently compared to new ones approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), this study shows.

The research was conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Medical News Today

“Only approximately half of drugs that are newly approved by the US FDA include data which compares the new medication with existing alternatives – known as comparative effectiveness (efficacy) data.”

…”Comparative effectiveness is taking on an increasingly important role in U.S. health care, yet little is known about the availability of comparative efficacy data for drugs at the time of their approval in the United States.”

Source: Medical News Today, May 5, 2011

Citation: JAMA. 2011;305(17):1786-1789. doi: 10.1001/jama.2011.539