Consumers and patients must have an integral role in health decision making in Canada.

The Common Drug Review (CDR) was announced in September 2002 as “a single process for reviewing new drugs and providing formulary listing recommendations to participating publicly-funded federal, provincial and territorial (F/P/T) drug benefit plans in Canada.” Unfortunately, this process specifically excludes those individuals it is intended to serve: consumers and patients.

A recently published study examined this issue in depth. The authors surveyed 60 voluntary health organizations from across the country and asked whether consumers and patients had important information to add to the CDR process. An overwhelming 98% of respondents felt that consumers’ input would be important to the decision-making process. When asked specifically how important it would be for their organization to be involved on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is extremely important, and 1 is not at all important, almost 80% rated this an 8 or higher:

Specifically, at a time when Canadians are asking the government to be more transparent and accountable, including consumers in decisions leads to greater support for decisions, fewer complaints, as well as increased credibility for the decision.