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eLetters: Accessing prescription data: a better way?
In response to: A call for the regulation of prescription data mining
Samuel Shortt
Email: seds@post.queensu.ca
Affiliation: Queen's University
Posted on: November 29, 2000
I am puzzled by the debate over the paper by Zoutman and colleagues. Surely the moral to their paper is simply that there has to be a better way for researchers and governments to access prescribing data than from a proprietary supplier. In an era which has simultaneously come to appreciate that, first, a successful health system survives on robust data and, second, protection of individual confidentiality is paramount, it would seem public policy on presciption information demands attention. If a national pharmacare program is ever to emerge and survive in Canada, it will require access to precisely this sort of data. Evidence-based policy requires evidence about which there is no debate as to its probity. Zoutman and colleagues are to be commended for making this need so transparent.
Samuel Shortt
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