{"id":1053196,"date":"2011-11-06T16:54:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T16:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.immortalitymedicine.tv\/neurology\/medical-apps-are-a-wonderful-thing-but-those-drug-ads-may-sway-doctors-choices.php"},"modified":"2024-08-17T18:48:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T22:48:57","slug":"medical-apps-are-a-wonderful-thing-but-those-drug-ads-may-sway-doctors-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/neurology\/medical-apps-are-a-wonderful-thing-but-those-drug-ads-may-sway-doctors-choices.php","title":{"rendered":"Medical apps are a wonderful thing but those drug ads may sway doctors’ choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From the NYTimes<\/a>:<\/p>

Epocrates<\/a> drug reference app has won over 50% of U.S. doctors. But like so much else on the Web, “free” comes with a price: doctors must wade through marketing messages on Epocrates that try to sway their choices of which drugs to prescribe.<\/p>

The marketing messages are difficult to ignore. For example, a psychiatrist who recently opened Epocrates on his iPhone said that before he could look up any drugs, he had to click past “DocAlert” messages on hypertension, bipolar disorder and migraines.<\/p>

Epocrates says drug makers get $3 in increased sales from every dollar spent on DocAlerts.<\/p>

One in five doctors will not see drug sales representatives at work, and Epocrates sees DocAlerts as a way to get a sales pitch in front of doctors.<\/p>

Pharmaceutical companies provide at 70% of Epocrates’s revenue, which totaled $104 million last year. According to the former CEO: “It is a unique market. You have a drug industry that spends $14 billion a year to influence people who prescribe drugs. There are only 600,000 people who are allowed to prescribe drugs, so there is $14 billion spent against 600,000 people ($23,333 per U.S. physician). If you have a channel to reach these physicians, it is a gold mine.”<\/p>

I use the online version of Epocrates<\/a>. It is free and has a useful integration with a clinical evidence reference database provided by BMJ which works similarly to UpToDate. There are no DocAlerts that you need to click through to access the website.<\/p>

References:<\/p>

The Epocrates App Provides Drug Information, and Drug Ads<\/a>. NYTimes.<\/p>

Comments from Google Plus<\/a>:<\/p>

Darin Swonger - Palm or now HP and Epocrates parted ways and is now not supported with my Palm Pre, therefore, I have been using Medscape Reference and have found it to be adequate in most areas and better in others.<\/p>

Ellen Richter - Gee, I use it every day & I've I never had a problem with the app due to ads getting in the way. I dont even recall seeing any ads! Do you think its because I'm not a doctor? It asks for your profession at registration, so I specified that I am a nurse. For once, could that be a benefit!!? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>

Nancy Onyett, FNP-C - It is the confidence to look past the drug ads, just like immunity to drug reps that hound me on a daily basis. I only practice from EBM and guidelines then I am protected. New drugs to the market are always a worry, they have been trialed and FDA approved, they are more costly to patients and the outcome is still muddy until they have been around awhile. I personally like to use the older drugs that have been around with subsequent studies proving their efficacy.<\/p>

Posted at Clinical Cases and Images<\/a>. Stay updated and subscribe<\/a>, follow us on Twitter<\/a> and connect on Facebook<\/a>.\"\"<\/p><\/div>

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Source:
http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/CasesBlog<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the NYTimes:Epocrates drug reference app has won over 50% of U.S. doctors. But like so much else on the Web, “free” comes with a price: doctors must wade through marketing messages on Epocrates that try to sway their choices … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1246864],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neurology"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}