Transparency in Canadian public drug advisory committees

Transparency in health care resource allocation decisions is a criterion of a fair process. We used qualitative methods to explore transparency across 11 Canadian drug advisory committees.

We developed seven criteria to assess transparency (disclosure of members' names, disclosure of membership selection criteria, disclosure of conflict of interest guidelines and members' conflicts, public posting of decisions not to fund drugs, public posting of rationales for decisions, stakeholder input, and presence of an appeals mechanism) and two sub-criteria for when rationales were posted (direct website link and readability). We interviewed a purposeful sample of key informants who were conversant in English and a current or past member of either a committee or a stakeholder group. We analyzed data using a thematic approach. Interviewing continued until saturation was reached.

We examined documents from 10 committees and conducted 27 interviews. The median number of criteria addressed by committees was 2 (range 0-6). Major interview themes included addressing: (1) accessibility issues, including stakeholders' degree of access to the decision making process and appeal mechanisms; (2) communication issues, including improving internal and external communication and public access to information; and (3) confidentiality issues, including the use of proprietary evidence.

Most committees have some mechanisms to address transparency but none had a fully transparent process. The most important ways to improve transparency include creating formal appeal mechanisms, improving communication, and establishing consistent rules about the use of, and public access to, proprietary evidence.