Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses.
To Sharon Sholzberg-Gray, the health care equation is almost impossible to square. I'm not in disagreement with anything you've said about Canadians' wide-ranging support for socialized medicine and our responsibility to maintain that. I remember actually attending the Romanow report and inquiry and looking at trying to find ways within the system itself--and it would cost money--to actually find more revenue by cutting some costs and thereby generating more revenue from those cost savings.
One of the issues we've looked at is the Canada health information highway, or Infoway, and the $400 million that's been put there. I think that's pretty significant. I remember talking about this at the Romanow commission, and it didn't go anywhere at the time.
We're all attached to our BlackBerrys, our computers, and our information systems, but there's no reason a doctor or nurse in the hospital can't be walking down the hall, input the medical file into their electronic chart, and have it go everywhere within that system all at the same time. If a person is allergic to a certain drug, then that should automatically come up on the person's chart. It would also prevent some of the human error that can occur. If a person is allergic to milk products, that should automatically go to the kitchen. Somehow or other we've not done that, but the technology is readily available.
Can you comment on that?