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MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT Previous Volume 353:2742-2743 December 29, 2005 Number 26 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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An unintended effect of the Medicare Part D benefit could be the creation of the world's most valuable resource for understanding how drugs are used, especially by the elderly and the chronically ill, and their risks and benefits. This resource would be created by linking information on drug dispensing to patients' other health information. Medicare data are available for more than 40 million people. These data can transform our ability to assess drugs under real-life conditions, particularly in this vulnerable population, which is often underrepresented in clinical trials. However, in order to realize this benefit, we must make it a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

Dr. Platt is a professor in and chair of the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, and principal investigator of the HMO Research Network Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics, Boston, and principal investigator of an FDA contract (HHSF 223200510010C) to perform post-marketing surveillance for drug risks and benefits. Dr. Ommaya is a senior staff member at the Institute of Medicine, Washington D.C.

An interview with Dr. Arnold Epstein about the Medicare prescription-drug benefit may be heard at www.nejm.org. Dr. Epstein is a professor of health care policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an associate editor of the Journal.

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