Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19948

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: Magazine

Limprecht E
GPs paid peanuts for data
Australian Doctor 2004 Nov 121
http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/gps-paid-peanuts-for-data

Full text:

GPs are being paid as little as $150 in department store vouchers in return for handing over patient prescribing data worth millions to pharmaceutical companies and research bodies, Australian Doctor can reveal.

As the General Practice Computing Group raised concerns about the ethics of the practice, it emerged that one company CAMM Pacific has signed up to its market research program 200 GPs who are using Medical Director software. Doctors, who are not identified in the data, supply patients prescription information, gender and age.

Although CAMM Pacific said the exact fees paid to doctors remained confidential, Australian Doctor
can reveal GPs who supply the information receive $150 as a cheque or shopping vouchers every three months.

Health Communication Network (HCN), which owns Medical Director, also receives a fee through a contract with CAMM Pacific to provide the computer tool needed to extract the raw data from GPs systems.

HCN refused to reveal the value of the contract, and CAMM Pacific CEO Mr Neil Fox also refused to say how much his company was charging drug companies for GPs prescribing data.

But two Sydney GPs who have developed their own software platform to collect de-identified patient information from GPs to sell on to pharmaceutical companies and research bodies, estimate such sales are worth more than $200 million a year.

Drs Jodhi Menon and Kim Low believe GPs, rather than a middleman, should profit from the use of such information, and claim doctors could double their income by doing so.

Dr Low said: Its definitely a big contrast between what doctors get and what pharmaceutical companies pay. Thats why we thought its better the GPs get the money; have them profit.”

But ethical concerns about the trade in de-identified patient data have been re-ignited, with the General Practice Computing Group casting doubts on its ethics and the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner launching an investigation into CAMM Pacific and HCN to establish whether they are in breach of the Privacy Act.
GPCG chairman Dr Ron Tomlins also questioned the reliability of patient de-identification processes.

What is the basic principle that should apply in relation to making information we hold in our patient databases available to other people? Patients should have the opportunity to give or deny information before the event.

”Australian Consumers Association senior policy officer Ms Nicola Ballenden estimated the CAMM data would be worth at least six figures ”if sold to the pharmaceutical industry and said Medical Director should be designed around doctors and their patients, but really its designed around the needs of pharmaceutical companies ”It is ethically unsound for doctors to agree to participate in these surveys.”

Last month, research commissioned by the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner revealed two-thirds of the 1500 people surveyed said an individuals permission should be sought before de-identified information about them was used for research.

But HCN research general manager Mr Geoffrey Sayer denied the de-identification process was unreliable and said HCN wasvery conscious of patient privacy and confidentiality

”I strongly refute that Medical Director is designed around the needs of the pharmaceutical industry. The product is successful because it was designed by doctors for doctors and we still have the doctor-patient relationship in mind,” he said.