Evidence of meeting #29 for Health in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infoway.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
As of today, how many Telus employees are dedicated specifically to PrescribeIT?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
Over the course of the duration of the agreement, approximately 50 employees were dedicated to running or supporting the program.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
As of today, sir, how many are employed with PrescribeIT?
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Are any of the Telus employees or contractors who developed or worked on PrescribeIT outsourced workers located outside of Canada, yes or no?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
This is part of the contractual agreement that we have with Canada Health Infoway, and these are not details that I'm able to disclose at this point in time.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
PrescribeIT is being cancelled next month. Will any of the Telus employees currently staffing this program lose their jobs?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
As I mentioned, we value this technology and we've invested heavily in it, even prior to this project existing.
Yes, we believe that the underlying technology capabilities can be repurposed to support connected care activities in line with Bill S-5 and otherwise—
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
The time is well over. Thank you, Mr. Mazier.
I'll go to Mr. Eyolfson for the Liberals.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
Thank you for coming, sir.
With regard to this system of PrescribeIT, I'll apologize in advance if I have to cut you off. I might have the answer from what you've said and have to go on to other questions.
In practice, how interoperable was it? Were there problems when a physician was prescribing on it to a pharmacy that did not use it? Was it seamless at the end-user level? Were there some issues because everyone had to be on the same system?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
It was a seamless integration with all participating vendors. We provided the technology, which was functional and processed 180 million transactions over time. It was a frictionless experience from the perspective of the services that Telus Health provided to Infoway.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
When you referred to those who were participating, did all physicians and pharmacists have to subscribe to this program to do this?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
The adoption mandate—the onboarding of clinicians and provincial onboarding—did not rest with Telus Health for this particular program.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
Were there any issues with the application itself, whether functionality, reliability or integration to workflows? Had you had any concerns about those?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
The reliability was very high, at 99.9% uptime over nearly a decade of 24-7 operations. There weren't any issues with regard to reliability over time.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
There was no negative feedback from the provinces or providers or any end-users about the product or how it worked.
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
Given our responsibilities in the agreement, we were not privy to having these conversations with provinces as they were onboarding to PrescribeIT. This was with the operator of the program.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
Then if someone was not satisfied with how it was working in their practice, who would they bring these concerns to?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
They would bring these concerns to Canada Health Infoway.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
Had Canada Infoway passed on any concerns from end-users on this product?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
We have been participating in providing and supporting user feedback through our clinical advisory boards. The decision on acting on these recommendations and this feedback rested with the program operator.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
If there was any negative feedback or if there were problems, what steps did Telus take to adapt or modernize the product?
Vice-President, Provider Solutions, Telus Health
We always worked in tandem, very professionally and with integrity, with the program operator. Through our engagements, there were, as I mentioned, changes and amendments that we completed over the course of the program to help with the targets and the objectives of the operator over time.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Winnipeg West, MB
Okay.
What was the reason behind Telus's not wanting to continue with this program?