InterRAI excerpts from report regarding IP
There was no pre-existing working relationship with interRAI, the international research group that developed and owns the rights to the MDS.
The mandate required electronic submission of data, but interRAI had not licensed any software vendors to sell MDS software in Canada.
Pfizer obtained an interRAI license to use the RAI-HC in Italy and financed its translation, computerization, and implementation.
The fact that the MDS items were protected by copyright presented another hurdle to the adoption of an MDS-based instrument. The government would have had to negotiate with interRAI if any changes had been necessary, which the government was unwilling to do.
If MDS items had been used in the assessment form, they would have been embedded in the LTCI and integrated with care planning. This might have been possible if interRAI had adopted a more flexible attitude toward the copyright issue, because the government’s concern lay in maintaining a free hand in negotiation rather than actually making substantive revisions.
On the IT front, once the RAI translations were completed, attention turned to the need to incorporate the instruments into updated, user-friendly software—both to support the Galician iative and to facilitate the rollout of MDS-based systems in other regions. This software was developed, and the software company formalized a contract with interRAI to produce and distribute RAI-NH software commercially.
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