National survey of hospital policies on pharmaceutical sales representatives' activities.

Hospital pharmacy directors were surveyed nationwide to determine hospital policies on activities of pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs). The data were collected by means of a mail survey sent to pharmacy directors in a random sample of 854 hospitals. The survey asked them to indicate whether they had written or unwritten PSR policies and who was responsible for developing and enforcing them and describe the actual policies with regard to access controls, detailing controls, and exhibit controls. The response rate was 52.2%. Of the responding hospitals, 66.6% had written policies. However, many of those with written policies had developed them only recently. The pharmacy director was responsible for developing and enforcing policies on PSR activities in most of the hospitals, although pharmacy and therapeutics committees or purchasing directors developed and enforced such policies in some hospitals. Many hospitals rely on only an oral briefing during the PSR's first visit to communicate policy. The hospitals with written policies tend to be more likely than those without written policies to place specific limits on PSR access to hospitals and on detailing activities. A wide variability exists among the hospitals in the degree of formalization of PSR policies and in the nature of controls on PSRs.