Health committee  I wouldn't want to speak for them, certainly, but over the years there's been a significant change in the way that the pharmaceutical industry interacts with health care practitioners. They're governed, I know, by a code of conduct that's determined internally. The typical intera

Health committee  Less and less, and in academic environments where there are learners, it's increasingly strict. Sometimes there's complete prohibition in some of our academic centres; however, in more remote areas they do remain one of the primary sources of information, but I defer to Jamie's e

Health committee  Certainly, I'd support what has been said. I think at the core of this is the decision we make every day as health care practitioners, how do we balance the benefit against the risks? We and patients always accept some degree of risk in order to derive the benefit. The challenge

Health committee  Certainly government investment in impartial continuing education and knowledge transfer, and some of the programs we've suggested in our brief is a way to disseminate that kind of information in a non-biased way. I think it's fair to say in general that the health professional

Health committee  I think there are pockets of excellence in the country where some of these approaches are employed, and where there's a multidisciplinary approach that truly has the patient at the centre and that has all the follow-up and supports in place. It's telling that it takes that kind o

Health committee  We believe it should be in the strategy.

Health committee  I think there's quite a bit of unanimity around this issue. We're all motivated by doing the maximum good for the patient and minimizing the harm. I think on the principles you've heard here today and the intent, there would be widespread unanimity in the profession and in all he

Health committee  That's 898 prescriptions per 1,000 individuals. That doesn't mean 898 individuals.

Health committee  Certainly, I think there's a role for professional societies to play in some of the knowledge transfer. I think there's also a potential role for levels of government, and the federal government, in particular, to play a leadership role, to work together with the provincial and t

Health committee  I don't have that sense. I think what I'm hearing from my colleagues, and I think most other associations would likely take the same tack, is that we value information. Information gives us more ability to make the appropriate decisions for the patients. Dr. Meuser said we're u

Health committee  These are very interesting questions about appropriateness, because, of course, appropriateness is very difficult to define. You're well aware, I'm sure, of the Choosing Wisely initiative, whereby medical practitioners are trying to say upfront that we recognize that appropriat

Health committee  It is a tool, and hopefully it would be electronic and not three sheets of paper anymore.

Health committee  Maybe to provide another little context around that, back in Kingston last night I was speaking about this with an emergency room physician I highly respect. He said that 20 years ago we used opioids to treat patients for palliative care or for cancer pain, and we did a really cr

Health committee  I'll take the first stab at some of those. One of the truths that we can all agree on is that the point of engagement between the prescriber and the patient is the time when things can go wrong, or they can go right, or some combination in between. I think what we're saying is t

Health committee  Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon. Thank you for letting me testify before you as part of your study on the government's role in addressing prescription drug abuse. This is a serious issue. Let me begin by saying that the CMA shares the co