New report explains why physicians are reluctant to share patient data

"There is a perceived tradeoff between the public good and individual privacy. If we sway too much on the public good side, then all people's health data would be made available without conditions," explained Dr. El Emam. "If we sway too much on the individual privacy side then no health data would be shared without consent, but then this would potentially increase public health risks. Physicians are important gatekeepers of patient information, so we need to better understand the conditions under which they are willing to provide patient data so that everyone wins; we do not need to make these tradeoffs."

Five focus groups with 37 family doctors from across Canada provided insights into the reasons they were reluctant to share patient data. First, the physicians were concerned about the privacy of their patients, and did not know if the data uses would be limited to dealing with the pandemic. Second, they also did not perceive that they would get direct benefits back to them and their patients from giving data to public health. Finally, there were concerns about how the data could be used to evaluate their performance. Using these results, Dr. El Emam and his co-authors constructed a model to offer guidance on how public health can work with family practices to encourage data sharing for disease surveillance purposes.

"The study results provide a clear roadmap for public health authorities to get access to more community practice information," noted Dr. El Emam. "Patient data needs to be properly anonymized, and health care practitioners must be provided with timely and actionable feedback. It should not be taken for granted that the medical community is willing to give data unconditionally."

Provided by Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute