Dr Nicholas Robert: Lag Time Between a Drug Approval, Availability in EMRs Can Impact Patient Care

Nicholas Robert, MD, medical director of Data, Evidence & Insights, McKesson Life Sciences, explains the impact of lag time between a drug's approval and its availability for use in the electronic medical record (EMR).

Transcript

How can the lag time between a drug’s approval and the availability of the drug in the electronic health record for a physician to order impact patient care?

That’s something you could imagine: if there is a significant delay between a new regimen, and the only way to use a new regimen is through the EMR, those patients are not going to be treated with that new regimen. That was really the impetus for us to look at our own data and see how long that took because although we have not measured it, that’s something certainly something we could look at, which is what would happen, what is the advantage of getting new treatments in, assuming the new treatments are better treatments, which is the case. Obviously, the sooner you get the new treatment in the better chance you have on having an impact on patient care. So, it would be nice to look at that ourselves, and I think that might be something hopefully we will present at the next ISPOR.