There are a lot of questions, Dr. Fry. I will attempt my best.
First, in terms of outcomes, wherever possible, obviously, when we do our evaluations, we measure outcomes. Certainly, in the drug studies, what we found in those measurements is it absolutely reduces drug-to-drug adverse reactions. Here's an example. We just ran a study with three doctors' offices that are still on paper and three that are now computerized. We asked them to find the patients who had a heart attack a month ago, find the patients who are undergoing cancer therapies. We named two drugs and asked if they were recalled, could they find the patients who were on them. After 40 hours the practices that used paper gave up. Within just one hour, those that were automated were able, with great confidence, to pull up the names of the patients. That is a heck of an example of outcomes.
In terms of the rest of Canada, it's our two largest provinces, where there are a lot more points of care and it's a lot more complex, that are taking a while to come on board. Atlantic Canada is moving very well. Certainly, the west has moved very well. Manitoba got in pretty late, but they've played catch-up. I would say that over the next 18 months, fingers crossed, Ontario and Quebec will make progress, though. As we've said, in telehealth, and in EMRs and doctors' offices, Ontario is doing extraordinarily well.
In terms of aspects of new models of care, one of our new strategic directions, and Dr. Kendall Ho talked about it, is that there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be moving to e-consultations. Again, the Conference Board just came out with another study that showed there were 50 million unnecessary in-person visits to doctors' offices, which amounted to over 70 million lost hours, unproductive hours by Canadians who were spending three hours, on average, taking off work or school for a 10-minute to 15-minute appointment.
Some of those things could be done through e-consultation.