How do drug companies give docs urgent information? Not very well.

Long before spam, there was junk mail.

And what did we do with it? It went right into the “round file.”

And that’s what makes this report from the FDA really scary.

When drug companies have an important new warning for doctors, they send it out in something called a “Dear Healthcare Professional” letter.

That’s right — a form letter that gets delivered by the postman. One that could easily be mistaken for junk mail, and quite likely get tossed in the trash.

In its most recent committee meeting about this last month, the FDA revealed that only 13 percent of doctors, nurses or physician assistants could actually recall even seeing such letters. Just 13 percent!

And this is called the most commonly used “communication tool” between Big Pharma and doctors.

I wish someone could tell me how the Justin Bieber arrest could go around the world in under an hour, while urgent drug alerts are not getting to the doctors who really need to see them.

Sources:
“‘Dear healthcare professional ‘letters may not be effective REMS communication tool” Cheryl A. Thompson, 2/1/2014, Pharmacy News, ashp.org