Table 6.
Table 6 Fields That can be Used to Re-identify Patients in the Prescription Record According to Our Five Sources. For Hospital Pharmacies Other Data, Such as Dates for Admission and Discharge, are Collected. However, Here We Focus on the Variables That are Common Between Retail and Hospital Pharmacies
| Variable | CPhA Standard |
IMS 57 | Field in OIPCA Report? 58 | Disclosed According to Survey? 54 | Brogan 59 | Additional Explanations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defined in CPhA Std? 56 | CPhA Mandatory? 56 | ||||||
| Patient gender | Y | O | R | Y | Y ∗∗ | Y | All sources indicate that patient gender is collected. |
| Patient year of birth | Y | O | R | Y | Y ∗∗ | Y | The survey suggests that some provinces collected the full date of birth. 54 But both the OIPCA report 58 as well as the IMS Health Reports 57 indicate that only the year of birth is collected. |
| Patient postal code | Y | O | — | — | n ∗∗∗ | Y† | The survey indicated that only PEI allowed the collection of postal codes. 54 When we contacted the pharmacy registrar in PEI it was made clear that if geographic information was disclosed by pharmacies, only the FSA was being disclosed rather than the full postal code. The IMS health report indicated that neither the full postal code nor FSA are collected from any province. 57 The Brogan document indicated that the FSA was being collected. 59 |
| Pharmacy postal code | Y | M | Y | Y | — | Y | Brogan's data are from hospital pharmacies, therefore the pharmacist is known. |
| Prescriber postal code | Y | O | Y ∗ | Y | Y¶ | Y | Prescriber group is in the record layout for the Brogan data. |
∗ whether this field is collected depends on the arrangement with a particular pharmacy and on the province (not collected in BC, MN, QC).
∗∗ except MN, QC, NS.
∗∗∗ except PEI.
¶ except BC, SK, MN, Nfld.
† Brogan collects the patient FSA as part of its record layout.
M = Mandatory field in the CPhA claims standard; O = optional field. These fields will not necessarily be available for every pharmacy submitting data; CPhA = Canadian Pharmacists Association; SD = standard deviation; OIPCA = Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta; R = The field is required by IMS health Canada from all pharmacies submitting data, but if it is missing that would not invalidate the record.
The field is not defined or collected at all.