Manitoba eyes online physician profiles to help patients choose MDs
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* Barbara Sibbald

Manitoba is considering posting online physician profiles that may include an “outcomes record” of the treatment provided by every doctor in the province.

The profiles, recommended following an inquest into the 1994 deaths of 12 pediatric cardiac patients in Winnipeg, are supposed to give the public sufficient information to make informed decisions. They could also include the MD's age, years in practice and training location.

A working group cochaired by a Manitoba Health representative and Dr. Bill Pope, registrar at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, will deliver recommendations on what to include in the profiles by late fall. The province will pay for the new service.

Pope says the outcomes records are especially expensive and difficult to compile because information must come from a range of sources. Pope says outcomes records may also affect physician training — patients will seek the most experienced doctor, placing residents' training in jeopardy (*CMAJ* 2001;164 [3]:393) — and they don't accurately reflect patient mix. Manitoba is studying a Massachusetts physician-profile system (*CMAJ* 1999;160[9]:1321-2); MDs there say it helps them find appropriate specialists, Pope says. He added that this type of profile would not have prevented the hiring of Dr. Jonah Odim, the American pediatric cardiac surgeon whose skills were questioned during the Winnipeg inquest. “His qualifications were solid,” he says. Manitoba's pediatric cardiac surgery program closed in February 1995, and these patients now travel to Edmonton for treatment.

The physician profiles were discussed in a Manitoba Health report on progress made in implementing the inquest recommendations. Physician Achievement Reviews, like the ones in Alberta that assess MD performance, were also recommended, but Pope says they've been put on hold because they are too complex and too expensive (about $350 per physician).

The progress report also emphasized the need to change the culture surrounding error disclosure in medicine. Four conferences on this issue are planned over the next 2 years. The first, in April, attracted nearly 400 participants. — *Barbara Sibbald*, CMAJ