Lessons Learned from Initiatives Integrating Evidence-Based Prescribing into Health Care Agenda

The District of Columbia has been a leader in enacting and implementing initiatives to promote evidence-based medicine and to reduce conflicts of interest. The District has the only law licensing drug industry sales representatives, and also is implementing rules on off-label marketing disclosure and a prescriber education program, as well collecting and reporting on data on gifts and payments to health care practitioners from pharmaceutical companies, and investigating the practices of pharmacy benefit managers that switch drugs and sell prescribing information for use in marketing. The presentation will address the implementation of these initiatives the place of these policies in a health agenda.