Physician networks could influence how their peers prescribe new medications

When it comes to adopting new medications, new research finds that what their peers do could play a big role in what medicines physicians choose to prescribe. Researchers compared prescribing patterns of the cancer medication Avastin in the two years after it was approved in 2004 and between 2007-2010. About 20% of the more than 44,000 cancer patients included in the study hadn’t received the medication before 2007. After this point, scientists found that doctors who were the top prescribers of Avastin also had in their peer networks physicians who were high prescribers of the drug between 2005-2006. The findings of this study could help health organizations leverage physician networks to better help other doctors adopt the use of certain treatments that may better help patients or keep costs low, the authors suggest.