Thank you.
I am the senior clinic pharmacist in the Canadian Forces, and I am responsible for the administration and management of our drug acceptance centre, which is basically our drug plan. On behalf of the Chief of the Defence Staff and the director general of health services of the Canadian Forces, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today on the common drug review.
As you may already know, the Constitution Act of 1867 assigns the sole responsibility for all military matters to the federal authority. Subsection 91(7) of the Constitution Act serves as the constitutional basis for the Canadian Forces health care mandate. In addition, the Canada Health Act specifically excludes Canadian Forces members from its definition of insured members, as do the public service health care and dental plans.
The director general of health services of the Canadian Forces is responsible for providing comprehensive health services to all regular and reserve members, as dictated by the conditions of employment, as well as anyone else, as determined by the minister. In all cases, despite this exclusion, the Canadian Forces health services must abide by the principles set forth in the 1984 Canada Health Act.
In April 2000, the Canadian Forces initiated an evidence-based medicine approach to managing its drug formulary, with the goal of improving health outcomes in Canadian Forces members. This program is based on three key principles: operational readiness, fairness, and equality.
With the creation of the common drug review process in 2003, the Canadian Forces and other federal health care partners determined that the common drug review offered significant benefits, and therefore we decided to willingly and actively participate in the common drug review process. At present, I am the Canadian Forces representative on the common drug review's Advisory Committee on Pharmaceuticals, and an observer at the Canadian Expert Drug Advisory Committee.
For the Canadian Forces, the common drug review has eliminated duplication, decreased time to review and make listing decisions on new chemical entities, and enabled the Canadian Forces and the Federal Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee to address other pressing federal drug benefit plan issues. For the most part, the Canadian Forces has complied with the recommendations of the common drug review. However, as per the data you were previously provided with, there are variances, and many of these variances can be attributed to our vastly different patient population, as well as our mandate.
For instance, the membership within the Canadian Forces is approximately 85% male. They range in age from 17 to 60 years old, and they are relatively healthy compared to the Canadian population. Given the Canadian Forces health services group mandate to provide health care to its members in Canada and on operations, it is easy to see that our conditions of service have a direct effect on our drug benefit listing decisions. We must be able to overcome the limited load and resupply capabilities associated with deployed operations. We must also take into account product stability concerns based on each theatre of operations. Rest assured that careful consideration is given to every listing decision in order to ensure that we can maintain our operational capabilities.
At present we have four listing categories: list, list with criteria, do not list, and not a benefit. Should a member have tried all the benefit items and failed to demonstrate an improved outcome, a request for a non-benefit list item can be made to the Canadian Forces health services group directorate of health service delivery spectrum of care committee for adjudication on a case-by-case basis.
In conclusion, I hope I've been able to highlight the differences between the Canadian Forces membership and the rest of the Canadian population. In addition, like my colleagues before me, I must reiterate that the common drug review is working very well and has allowed us to reallocate many of our already scarce resources to other pressing drug benefit list matters.
Thank you.