An RACGP committee has granted MedicineInsight ‘ethics approval’, but practices must sign up again to participate...
Professor Mark Morgan, Chair of RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care, told newsGP that the value of general practice data, as well as the cost of collecting, maintaining, and sharing it, means information should not be given away without a clear return in value.
‘NPS MedicineInsight provided data analytic reports and an academic detailing program that contributing GPs found valuable,’ he said.
‘Some of the data extraction tools provide very helpful real-time computer decision support and others provide business analytic reports that help keep practices financially secure.
‘Data extraction tools also help a practice meet the requirements to receive direct pay-for-data within the Practice Incentive Program for Quality Improvement [PIP QI].’
MedicineInsight’s dataset includes information on what is happening in individual general practices and how it compares to similar clinics, with participating practices receiving regular reports on diagnosis and the quality use of medicines...
Professor Morgan said in general, GPs need to understand how their patient-data is shared beyond the practice, and whether they would be able to explain to a patient what happens to that de-identified data.
‘The data has great value to support health planning, ethical primary care research and quality improvement activities,’ he said.
‘Data can also be fed back in ways that help GPs provide more effective healthcare or fed back to make it easier for clinics to be financially rewarding.
‘On the flip side, data can be misused or used for purposes that many would not agree with. For example, data could be sold to pharmaceutical companies or used for public benchmarking of GP performance.’
The RACGP has a set of principles for the secondary use of data outlining its appropriate and inappropriate uses.
Primary care data
MedicineInsight