As part of the workup for this issue—and this again is something that was discussed with the previous Standing Committee on Health—we have done an international survey of foreign regulatory action, and what we've found is that there are a certain number of countries that do have mandatory reporting requirements for health professionals, but what we've also been told by them and what the evidence shows is that those requirements for mandatory reporting by individual health professionals have increased neither the quality nor quantity of adverse reaction reports. As a result, we have, again, through consultations with our provincial and territorial partners, and as well, by looking at some of their critical incident reporting systems, found that groups and teams of individuals provide more and better-quality reports.
In addition to the numerous other initiatives we've put in place since the creation of the marketed health products directorate in 2002, in the last year there was a 17% increase in the number of domestic adverse reaction reports. That's significant. We have seen a continual increase in those reports since 2002, as another element.
So there isn't just one solution. We recognize that the best place to get...I don't want to call it the best bang for the buck, but the most likely place to get the serious adverse reactions, which are the ones we're most concerned about, is from health care institutions. As a result, working with our provincial and territorial partners, hopefully they will be able to leverage the information, because we know that hospitalizations from adverse reactions are a significant drain on the health care system, in addition to individuals.