It is interesting that IMS is not the only organization which provides information on physician specific practice. The Canadian Institute for Health Information³ provides health organizations and provinicial governments with information about the practices of individual physicians. Just as pharmaceutical companies have used prescribing information for marketing purposes to increase sales and revenue, so provincial governments and health organizations try to use CIHI comparative length of stay information to reduce the costs of care by reducing hospital length of stay.

What is most interesting is that neither the IMS prescription data base, nor the Canadian Institute for Health Information data bases are able to link health care activities (drug prescribing for IMS, Hospital days for CIHI) with the health care results of those activities. Responsible governance of our health care system requires the capacity to link health care activities with the results of those activities so that wortwhile activities are supported and harmful or useless activities avoided. Health care constituencies need to decide how to respectfully, collect, store, manage and use appropriate patient and physician information.

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