I'll come back to the motion.
I'm sure colleagues across the aisle have an interest in the matter, which is the interoperability piece on the data. PrescribeIT is part of the larger effort around this, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about the larger digital health context, which this committee could consider. If we want to understand PrescribeIT as a program, I don't think we can just understand it on its own. There's a larger picture. There's a larger road map that as a nation we need to consider.
Earlier this week, we called upon Canada Health Infoway to answer questions around the program. There is a larger, shared, pan-Canadian interoperability road map, which makes it clear that the real issue is much broader than just one program or one dataset.
Physicians around this table who have experienced frustrations around data—interoperability of systems and sharing patient data—will agree that the real issue here is that we need to build a system. We need to build a system in which the digital tools actually connect to each other, in which information can move safely and meaningfully across settings and in which patients and providers are being served by systems that work together rather than against each other.
That's the broader theme and frame I want us to keep in mind as we consider this topic. That's why I'm going to keep returning to the road map as I speak about this particular program. PrescribeIT matters in that discussion, not because the road map is a report about PrescribeIT. It's not. The road map is a report about the larger structure of interoperability in Canada.
The report also makes reference to PrescribeIT in ways that are revealing. The appendix of the report notes that Canada has “made important progress in integrating community pharmacy and primary care prescribers”, and specifically cites this program. Elsewhere, it indicates that the deployment of the program was expected to expand to support hospital discharge prescriptions. In its stakeholder discussions, it notes that Infoway has discussed the potential value of digital tools, including with various organizations. Together in the larger system, we all want an integrated system, as we heard from today's witness from the pharmacy association.
With that, Madam Chair, I move that the meeting be now adjourned.