Healthy Skepticism Library item: 776

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

Limprecht E.
Patient data taken without GPs' consent
The Australian Doctor 2005 Jan 25

Full text:

The company which owns Medical Director software has admitted to extracting GPs’ confidential prescribing data without their knowledge – but denies it is in breach of privacy regulations because the information is immediately discarded.

Health Communication Network (HCN) has signed up 300 GPs as part of its General Practice Research Network (GPRN) scheme in return for payment to allow the company to remove de-identified patient information from their records and sell it to research organisations and pharmaceutical companies.

This practice, currently being investigated by the Privacy Commission, has aroused a heated ethical debate because the information is often taken without the direct consent of patients.

But Australian Doctor has learnt that HCN is not just removing patient prescribing information from its GPRN doctors. It says it is also extracting prescribing data from colleagues of GPRN doctors who are working in the same practice and relying on the software, even though these doctors have not given permission for data removal and may be unaware it is happening.

HCN’s research general manager Dr Geoff Sayer (PhD) stressed that information received from non-contracted doctors was de-identified and was immediately discarded. He said it was useless to HCN because it included no demographic information about the doctors, which was needed to make the data relevant for research purposes.

“When we analyse this data down the track we get rid of that information. We don’t believe that we have breached any rules and regulations in doing this,” Dr Sayer said.

Following the revelations, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said it would broaden its investigation into possible breaches of patient privacy by HCN, which is due to be completed by the end of the month.

General Practice Computing Group chairman Dr Ron Tomlins said whether HCN was using the information or not was “further down the ladder” of importance.

Simply obtaining doctors’ prescribing information, whether de-identified or not, without their permission was unethical, he said.

“I would think a software company was not behaving ethically if they were getting my information without my permission, regardless of whether they were using it or not.”

Australian Consumers’ Association senior policy officer Ms Nicola Ballenden said: “Why collect it if you’re not going to use it? Because this whole thing is happening behind closed doors, you don’t know what they are doing with the information.”

Dr Sayer insisted that HCN was protecting doctor and patient privacy.

“The allegation that we are supposedly doing this to magically make the database bigger is false,” he said. “It is not linked to a doctor so you can’t prove who it belongs to. It is not used, included or sold because it has no meaning.”