Off‐brand: A 6‐year study of medication brand and generic name usage in a multifacility academic healthcare system

Abstract

BackgroundUsage of medication brand names in electronic health records may introduce conflicts of interest, perpetuate false perceptions of brand superiority, alter prescribing practices, and cause confusion leading to errors.ObjectiveWe sought to identify the frequency of brand name medication usage in clinical documentation, as well as factors associated with increased usage.Designs, Settings, and ParticipantsWe conducted a retrospective analysis of all clinical documentation written at our healthcare system (a multifacility academic urban healthcare system) between 2015 and 2020.Main Outcomes and MeasuresWe used string‐matching and regular expressions to identify medication mentions. We conducted bivariate analyses to identify associations between brand name usage and author‐, note‐, and medication‐level factors, and a multivariate Poisson regression to clarify independent associations between individual factors and brand usage.ResultsA total of 104,456,653 notes from 37,285 unique authors were included in our analysis. A total of 162,906,009 medication mentions were identified, of which 36.0% were brand name mentions with a steady year‐over‐year decrease. Factors associated with the usage of a brand name include: author role, years since release, length and syllabic complexity of the generic name, service type, and encounter context. Over‐the‐counter availability did not affect usage. There was sizable individual variation between note writers.

The importance of being generic: Avoiding brand names for safety and clarity

“…We thus find the study by Steinkamp et al 4 published in this issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine to be timely and relevant. This serial cross-sectional study examined the frequency of use of generic and brand names for 518 medications in all notes in all clinical contexts written by all author types within a large academic healthcare system over a 6-year period (2015-2020).…”