Much to the chagrin of the Alberta Medical Association, a major collector of health data has “flip-flopped” on its previous policy and no longer allows doctors to refuse to share their drug-prescribing information with the company.
Until Sept. 9, IMS Health (Canada) allowed physicians, through its voluntary privacy code, to request that their information not be sold. IMS collects prescribing data from pharmacies, then sells it to pharmaceutical companies that in turn target high prescribers. Since IMS voluntarily initiated this opt-out policy in 1996, the company has received only a handful of requests. But that changed Aug. 28, when the AMA sent a letter urging all its member physicians to opt out.
IMS won't disclose how many requests it received, but it was enough for them to cancel the policy. “The letter-writing campaign was unbalanced and done to damage the integrity of the database,” says company President Roger Korman. He feared it could lead to “consent bias.”
The AMA is not amused. “IMS flip-flopped 180 degrees and said it would no longer honour its commitment,” says President Brendan Bunting.
The AMA advised members to opt out after IMS appealed a March ruling by the provincial privacy commissioner that prescription information is private and it is a violation of the Alberta Health Information Act for pharmacies to sell the information without a doctor's expressed consent. The appeal could take years to resolve.
“We have no problem with them using the information for research purposes,” says Bunting. “We do have a problem with them giving out the doctor's name.”
The AMA is to consider strategies for dealing with the issue at its next board meeting. IMS, meanwhile, says it has done nothing wrong by eliminating the opt-out policy.
Federally, the privacy commissioner has concluded that this type of information is a work product and not protected private information, but another data-collecting company has appealed that decision. The CMA has received intervener status in that case (CMAJ 2003; 168[3]: 325). — Barbara Sibbald, CMAJ