Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity to be invited here today for the presentation of the results of our recent audit by the Auditor General of Canada. With me today is Mr. Mike Sheridan, our chief operating officer.
I want to start by complimenting the Auditor General and her staff for what we believe is a thorough, balanced, and transparent audit conducted on Canada Health Infoway. Being an organization that strives for continuous improvement, we believe the implementation of the auditor's recommendations will strengthen Infoway.
The Auditor General pointed out in her November 3 news release that Canada Health Infoway has accomplished a lot since its creation. Needless to say, as its CEO I'm quick to agree with that, but I'm also quick to state that a lot more needs to be done.
Across Canada today, every province and territory and the populations they serve are benefiting from a share of the federal government's investments through Infoway in new information systems that will help transform health care. For example, our investments have helped eliminate three-quarters of X-ray films and replaced them with digitized images. The images are cheaper to produce, easier to store, and can be accessed by health professionals in various locations. Most importantly, they can be used to diagnose and help patients thousands of miles away in the remote and rural communities of our country. Today, as many as 40% of radiologists are now reporting on providing services in new or remote sites, eliminating anywhere between 10,000 and 17,000 patient transfers each year.
Leveraging Infoway's investments, drug information systems are now in place in B.C., Alberta, P.E.I., and Saskatchewan. Today, PharmaNet in B.C. captures every prescription dispensed in pharmacies and provides alerts to pharmacists and some physicians. For example, in 2008 more than 55 million prescriptions were processed via PharmaNet in British Columbia. Of those, 2.5 million significant drug interactions were identified. When you project that across Canada, this suggests that drug information systems could reduce about 55 million inappropriate prescriptions and identify more than 20 million significant drug interactions each year. In terms of lives saved and injuries prevented, that is hugely significant.
In Alberta, 20,000 authorized health care providers are active users of the electronic health record. Having the EHR in place has enabled Alberta to begin essential chronic disease management systems, like the management of diabetes.
The investment Infoway is making in the area of telemedicine is making a substantial impact in Canada, especially in the north, where all communities north of 60 are telehealth-enabled or are getting there. We're also on track to get 40% of first nations communities telehealth-enabled, with a focus on mental health and drug addiction services.
The Auditor General has quite correctly defined some of the challenges in making electronic health records available for 50% of Canadians by December 2010, and of course their subsequent use by health care professionals. I want to be clear that without the availability of these systems, use cannot and will not happen. It really is a two-stage process. Our jurisdictional partners are building and implementing the core system solutions for the electronic health records.
Developing such health information systems is very similar to constructing a home or a building. The building has to be available before tenants can actually move into the space, occupy it, and use it as it was designed and intended. In this joint initiative, as the Auditor General has so astutely noted, Infoway can move only as quickly as our jurisdictional partners are able. The jurisdictional deputy ministers of health have told me they are committed to making their best efforts to meet the December 2010 target of 50%. Again, I need to be clear: I believe it will be a challenge.
Infoway has accepted the Auditor General' s eight recommendations. We have completed an action plan for each of the recommendations, have shared the plan with the Auditor General's office, and have received extremely useful comments. It's our intention to file the action plan with this committee and with the public accounts committee by mid December, following a review of that action plan by my board this week. We intend to have the Auditor General's recommendations fully implemented during the next year.
In closing, I would like to say that while we remain committed to our ambitious call to action target of 50%, I do believe that we have a bigger challenge emerging, especially if we need to start equipping our community clinicians with electronic medical records to increase the use of the investment to date.
The time, Madam Chair, doesn't allow me to explain the difference between electronic medical records and electronic health records. However, the auditor's office has done a wonderful job in chapter 4, paragraph 4.4, which explains the difference.
Let me say that in a recent Commonwealth study of primary care in 11 countries, Canada had a deplorably poor showing. In an example from the study, Canada is last of 11 countries on doctors in communities using EMRs. We're second to last of 11 countries on routinely sending patients reminders for preventative or follow-up care. And we're second to last of countries where the practice routinely receives and reviews data on patient clinical outcomes.
These basically add up to one conclusion, as the Auditor General has said in her report:
Unless the percentage of primary care doctors using electronic medical records (EMRs) increases significantly, the potential benefits offered by electronic health records (EHRs) will not be fully realized.
As a country, we really do need to take the next logical step and focus on the implementation and broad adoption of the use of EMRs.
Madam Chair, that concludes my remarks.
Both myself and Mr. Sheridan would be delighted to take questions.
