Researchers at the University of British Columbia Centre for Health Services and Policy Research have developed a comprehensive portrait of pharmaceutical spending in Canada -- more than $20 billion by the end of 2005 -- and assembled the results into a first-of-its-kind atlas.
The Canadian Rx Atlas uses prescription data provided by IMS Health Canada, an international health industry information company, from 2,100 retail pharmacies to break down trends in drug spending between 1998 and 2004, and provides detailed depictions of regional variations in spending. The report is now available at www.chspr.ubc.ca.
“The Atlas gives policy makers and practitioners access to visual and intuitive representations of the factors driving pharmaceutical expenditures,” says Steve Morgan, lead researcher on the project. “This includes price changes, increases in usage, or choices made by doctors and patients when deciding which drug to use to treat a particular condition.”
The Canadian Rx Atlas features over 40 full-colour maps detailing the impact of increased pharmaceutical use, the selection of newer, more expensive drugs, and price changes. It deliberately contains minimal analysis and interpretation, and focuses on making the data as accessible as possible.
“While this atlas is step forward in terms of breaking down what prescription drugs Canadians are spending money on, we still know frighteningly little about how these drugs are being used and about the sources of cost increases,” says Morgan. “This atlas underscores the importance of national efforts to build data systems for monitoring pharmaceutical utilization, expenditures, and, most importantly, health outcomes.”