Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11204

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Guild data security move
Pharmacy Daily (Australia) - registration required 2007 Aug 15
http://www.pharmacydaily.com.au

Full text:

THE Pharmacy Guild is asking all companies which access data from dispensary computers for annual written undertakings relating to patient privacy.

In a circular to members this week the Guild said it’s setting up an Expanded Dispensary Data
Register on its website, listing all companies which take data from pharmacy computer systems and
their promises relating to patient information.

The move follows controversy earlier this year in which some drug company representatives were allegedly using USB memory sticks to access dispensing information when making calls on pharmacists.

At the time the Guild warned pharmacists not to allow anyone to access their computers, saying there were “certain aspects of what is occurring in some pharmacies that are of concern and may well be compromising privacy principles as well as professional ethics”.

The new Dispensary Data Register will include the signed undertakings from companies which use dispensary information, which “should assure pharmacists and their patients that no patient information is accessed or downloaded from the dispensary computer”.

The Guild said companies should also promise that any necessary safeguards to protect the privacy of the pharmacy and the confidentiality of any data are in place, and that the data won’t be on-sold to anyone else.

A new undertaking will be requested every year to “ensure that companies continue to meet their obligations with regard to patient privacy and pharmacy confidentiality and security when accessing data from dispensary computers,” the Guild said.

The first and only company to so far provide an undertaking for the register is Sanofi-Aventis.