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• Wednesday, April 18, 2007 08:01 PM

  but just the facts

  JUST THE FACTS. You are correct in assuming it is a personal decision to fill/not fill your prescriptions. But from the perspective of medical care, there is a definite need to know whether or not you did. Albeit, you need the absolute right to refuse to take a drug, for whatever reason. And albeit, it's nobody's right to look at what drugs you take, in order to make any decisions about you except on the basis of evaluating medical eficacy/medical care. My point:

  1. We could gain immense knowledge by studying the overall care/treatment a patient receives in our efforts to combat disease. A key component of that is prescription drug usage. We can and should develop ways to use the data to evaluate drug compliance, but protect the patients privacy rights to not have that data used in punitive ways.

  2. Perhaps more probematic, but if physicians had an objective way to evaluate a patients drug compliance, they could more effectively treat their patients. Patients always say they are compliant. If physicians had a way to evaluate true compliance, they could more effectively help the patient (Why didn't you fill your prescriptions? Because you can't afford it? Because you don't agree with the prescribed treatment? etc.)

  —Michmod Read Michmod's other letters
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