Healthcare IT Update

Senate amendment to ban drug data mining tabled

Did you know that some companies collect data from pharmacies on physicians’ prescribing patterns and later sell it for marketing purposes?

Senator Herb Kohl had sponsored an amendment to the Senate’s health reform bill to ban such prescription drug data mining, but it’s unlikely the amendment will stay as the bill comes up for a vote, Reuters reports.

The amendment had alarmed companies that sell drug data, such as IMS Health and McKesson Corp’s Verispan and even the American Medical Association, Reuters reports. IMS saw the price of its stock shares fall Friday before the amendment was pulled.

Data mining physicians’ prescribing data is a big business because pharmaceutical companies buy the data for marketing purposes. Data mining advocates say the practice furthers research and helps monitor safety.