Generic Medication Prescription Rates After Health System–Wide Redesign of Default Options Within the Electronic Health Record

In this study evaluating a re-design of electronic health record defaults to only display generic names of medicines, the overall generic prescribing rate increased from 75.3% during the 10-month preintervention period to 98.4% during the 7-month postintervention period (P<0.001)

This edition of JAMA Internal Medicine has also featured a survey of physicians’ beliefs around the effectiveness of generic medicines compared to branded products, together with this study evaluating the re-design of prescribing systems to feature medicines listed by generic name.

 

A related editorial also discusses the implications of the findings of these studies, and notes that the studies in this issue show great progress—but also great risks—for the generic drug industry in the United States.