ASHP also believes that with access to the patient's health record comes the pharmacist's professional responsibility to safeguard the patient's rights to privacy and confidentiality. Within health systems, all authorized practitioners should be encouraged to communicate freely with each other but to maintain patient confidentiality and privacy. Uniquely identifiable patient information should not be exchanged without the patient's authorization for any reason not directly related to the provision of health care services. ASHP believes there is no potential for a breach of patient confidentiality when patient information is aggregated for use in legitimate research and statistical measurement and is not uniquely identifiable. Therefore, specific authorization by individual patients for access to this information is not needed.
Pharmacists participate extensively in clinical trials of drugs.
ASHP believes all clinical trial data must be recorded and stored in such a way that the subjects' rights of privacy and confidentiality are protected. The current process for storage and retrieval of clinical trial data contains adequate safeguards to protect patient information. As part of the established procedure for obtaining informed consent, patients receive a statement describing the parties that will have access to patient-identifiable information. These parties include institutional personnel who audit the information for quality or financial integrity and personnel from the study sponsor or FDA who monitor compliance with regulations. ASHP believes pharmacy residency programs and other training programs must implement policies and procedures to ensure the confidentiality of patient medical records while allowing pharmacy students and residents access to these records in the course of their training.