Pubdate: Thu, 30 Jun 2005
Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN)
Copyright: 2005 The Leader-Post Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361
Author: Janet French, Saskatchewan News Network; CanWest News Service

DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION GOAL OF NEW DATABASE

SASKATOON -- Saskatchewan health professionals will soon have access 
to a provincewide database containing the prescription information of 
everyone in the province.

Saskatchewan Health is in the process of linking computers in 
pharmacies across the province to compile the data as part of the new 
Pharmaceuticals Information Program (PIP).

The province created the program in response to recommendations from 
a coroner's inquest into the death of Darcy Dean Ironchild, a 
Saskatoon man who died in February 2000 from an overdose of 
prescription drugs. Ironchild received over 300 prescriptions in the 
year before his death.

The system will prevent people from abusing prescription drugs and 
help pharmacists and doctors prevent drug interactions, assistant 
deputy minister of health Lawrence Krahn said.

"If (a pharmacist was) filling a prescription and he might see, 'gee, 
this one might conflict with another medication you got prescribed to 
you last week, and possibly somewhere else,' they're then able to 
have a chat about that or (say) 'let's get back to your doctor and 
talk about that,'" Krahn said.

In January, the legislature passed a law requiring all pharmacies to 
transmit information about all prescriptions filled there. By fall, 
all pharmacies across the province should be hooked up and doctors 
and pharmacists can begin accessing the database, Krahn said.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is anxiously 
awaiting PIP, associate registrar Brian Salte said. Currently, the 
college operates the so-called triplicate program to track drugs with 
the potential for abuse like narcotics, ritalin and 
codeine-containing medication.

"The current program is limited by a variety of things," Salte said.

Also, prescription information for First Nations patients are entered 
by hand and take a month to appear in the college's database, he said.

The Saskatchewan College of Pharmacists also supports the program.

"It's something we've proposing for many, many years now and we're 
glad that it's finally coming to fruition," college registrar Ray Joubert said.

Unlike each pharmacy's database, PIP will include prescriptions 
patients filled at other pharmacies.

In times when thieves pilfer hard disks full of credit card numbers, 
people should be asking tough questions about how the privacy of 
their information in this database will be protected, said Wendy 
Armstrong, an independent health policy analyst and board member of 
the Alberta branch of the Consumers' Association of Canada.

"There is some potential benefit to a database of all the 
prescriptions someone is on being accessible to certain key 
professionals at certain key times," Armstrong said. "But the risks 
and benefits to individual citizens are in the details, and the devil 
is in the details."

Consumers should find out if health professionals need their 
permission to access PIP and if they themselves can access the 
information the database contains about them, Armstrong said. 
Professionals should be checking the accuracy of the data with 
patients and be aware of the limitations in the information 
collected, she said.

It's important the information stays only in the hands of people who 
are meant to see it, Armstrong said. "We see an awful lot of 
discrimination based on one's health information."

Patients who wish to will be able to "mask" their prescription 
information from being seen, Krahn said, but the province hasn't 
worked out the details of that process. Although the Health 
Department takes the protection of privacy seriously, Krahn said, 
they must also consider those who intend to abuse prescription drugs 
may also choose to opt out.

Pharmacists and doctors can refuse to dispense or prescribe drugs if 
a patient's masking habits seem suspicious, Krahn said.

Armstrong encourages consumers to enquire about information is 
collected, how it will be used, and by whom.
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MAP posted-by: Beth