Evidence of meeting #73 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was patients.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Lepage, I've been assured that Infoway would never fund a project where the architecture doesn't meet its basic requirements. Is that correct or is that incorrect? I want to clarify that for my own....
5:20 p.m.
President, Health and Payment Solutions, TELUS
The reality is, standards are set. Any standards body will not go down to.... You can apply a standard in IT, and you can follow a standard, and be compliant with a standard, but it doesn't mean that two technologies that are compliant with the same standard will necessarily talk to each other 100%.
What I think has happened also is this. Look at the evolution of technology. We started that journey, let's say, in 2000. We're now sitting in 2013. What's available from a technology perspective today that's Internet based or web based allows for a lot more integration or interoperability of the technology. Where systems in the past could not talk to each other, it's a lot easier for those systems to talk to each other today.
I don't know if I'm answering your question.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Just one more quick question ,and I'll turn it over to Dr. Carrie.
To my mind, what it sounds like is it has cost us $5 billion to get this far, and it isn't going to be completely compatible. In the short term there are going to be a lot of patches to get it to work. Then in a few more years there are going to be all these huge demands to upgrade to exactly what you describe. It seems to me like that's going to be the 2.0, the 3.0, and then you're right back in, spending another $5 billion before you've completely implemented what you first set out to do.
I think that's what I've heard. Those are probably the realities of the day.
I'll turn it over to Dr. Carrie.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
I would like to talk to you, Mr. Lepage, about smart phone innovation and web-based applications. We know that the Lawson Health Research Institute and the Canada Health Infoway have partnered for the smart phone initiative and web application for mental illness. I was wondering if you could expand on that.
It seems that people today, wherever you walk, have one of these things. Dr. Price was even saying Canadians and people in general have to start taking more responsibility for their own health. Could you give us a little bit of an update on what TELUS is doing with these things that are going to make the system a little bit better for Canadians?
5:25 p.m.
President, Health and Payment Solutions, TELUS
In this particular project, we started with 200 patients and we're going to grow this to 400. There's a first control group. The first group of 200 patients had the first version of the technology. There's going to be a third group that is going to get the new and improved version of the technology.
What the patients did is sign up via the Internet on a PC to a personal health record application. In conjunction with their physician, they set certain goals for themselves and they set certain parameters they wanted to monitor. This would be true for mental illness, for somebody who's a diabetic, or someone who has congestive heart failure. It would be true for any patient who has a chronic disease that has to be tracked over time. We created a version of that application to make the user interface more compatible with use on a smart phone. You can't do on a smart phone exactly what you can do on a PC.
Reminders are sent to the patient. If in his care plan he was supposed to exercise, he was supposed to do certain things, those reminders are pushed to the patient, and then the patient will do the assigned task. That information will flow from the smart phone to the personal health record and is stored somewhere.
What we're doing, basically, is creating an interaction between the patient and the physician, but you're also creating a sense where the patient is taking charge of his chronic disease. If we're going to be successful in doing that today, we have to do it on technology that people are carrying with them. If you're creating a third or fourth piece of technology that you're going to have to carry with you, people won't adopt the technology.
A lot of our thinking is we have to push our applications to smart phones, to tablets, because more and more doctors are using tablets. The idea is to make it accessible to individuals.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
I have one quick question. We're all interested in cost savings. I think TELUS Health Solutions worked with a study recently on how much money could be saved if we started to adopt these technologies. Because—
Oh, do I have any time, Madam Chair?
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
I'm sorry, the bells are ringing. I have been informed by the clerk that the bells have just started, so we're going to have to cut this off right now with our many thanks to our witnesses and the committee.
The meeting is adjourned.