Steven Pearson, MD, Addresses Formulary Decision Making

Almost all pharmacy and therapeutic committees have a unique process for evidence-based formulary decision making, said Steven Pearson, MD, founder & president, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. “Evidence is an anchor and obviously the strongest part of the foundation of evidence-based decision making, but it’s just a piece of a larger whole,” said Dr Pearson. Dr Pearson also explains the “level of certainty” when determining the strength of evidence behind research. When making formulary decisions it is important to determine the net health benefit and the level of certainty in that benefit. “Overall, it is helpful to think, is the level of certainty in your evidence high, moderate, or low? Because according to that I think it really flows through into the way into you would think about using that evidence in a formulary decision,” said Dr Pearson.