Evidence of meeting #33 for Health in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Helena Konanz Conservative Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Dr. Vaughan, the tendered contracts on the Canada Health Infoway site show a one-time payment of $178,500 to a numbered company, 2184103 Ontario Inc. Who owns that company, and what did Infoway buy for $178,500?
Conservative
Helena Konanz Conservative Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Can you table that for us? Thank you.
Dr. Vaughan, the Canada Health Infoway website displays tendered contracts from only 2024 to 2026. Where's the rest of the information? Why does the website contain information from only those years?
Liberal
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
I think it's just a matter of trying to be current.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
We will now go to the honourable member of Parliament Mr. Rana for five minutes. Please go ahead.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for your valuable time.
Dr. El-Demerdash, how are you navigating technological access issues to ensure that more Canadians can use programs like PrescribeIT?
President, Telus Health
We obviously have very strong beliefs in the importance of connected care for Canadians and the importance of making data accessible and having ownership of data. We've had several products that we've released, and we spend a lot on developing innovations and technologies pursuant to that goal.
Recently, with regard to e-prescriptions, we released a white paper on our viewpoint on how we can get the Canadian health system to continue to advance from a connectivity standpoint as well as getting to having a successful e-prescription program in place.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
How do digital tools like PrescribeIT address rural, indigenous or underserved populations?
President, Telus Health
The benefit of having standard technology is, then, the ability for everybody to connect to it, and having a common standard. In this case, the way the technology was implemented would allow any rural area—indigenous communities, anyone—to be able to connect to the system.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
Where do you see AI fitting into prescribing and medication safety?
President, Telus Health
We believe in safe and ethical utilization of AI. We believe in guardrails and the safe utilization of technology. In all scenarios where we use artificial intelligence, we prioritize the importance of making sure it is safe for the application it is used for. It is definitely a technology that is important to utilize to advance technology.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
How do you measure success for a pan-Canadian digital health initiative?
President, Telus Health
As we look at and compare against several other countries out there, success is going to be in the adoption of the program—getting the technology in place, but also having the standards and the mandates in place to get more people to utilize the technology and take advantage of it.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
Dr. Vaughan, you have been deputy minister of health and wellness for Nova Scotia. How do you see the federal and provincial challenges impacting digital health adoption?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
The challenges of the federated health model are significant. Other countries that have faced similar challenges have developed digital agencies with legislative clout to tackle some of the challenges. Otherwise, you are appealing to the goodwill of provinces and territories, and provinces and territories have their own priorities.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
We had a wonderful flight the other day and a wonderful chat about the health system.
What are the biggest privacy and security challenges in virtual health systems?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
There are lots of security and privacy challenges. We read about AI and quantum computing coming within a period of time that's probably faster than we would like or expect to be ready for.
The challenges are ongoing, and that's why the success of PrescribeIT was so important. We're able to take all those privacy and security pieces, and lessons learned, and develop an open standards approach, which Infoway has been successful at doing, going forward.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
What were the biggest barriers to scaling up PrescribeIT nationally?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
The biggest challenge was the lack of incentives or mandates. That is the biggest challenge. If you look, as I said, internationally, that is the lesson learned here.
Liberal
Aslam Rana Liberal Hamilton Centre, ON
What incentives are required to get providers to adopt digital tools like PrescribeIT?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
With electronic medical records, provinces incented doctors to adopt the technological tool. Similarly, in other jurisdictions, they have paid physicians to become a part of that, or as a part of their remuneration, they put that it would be required.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you very much.
We will go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Vaughn, you called the PrescribeIT program a technological success. Telus owns 85% of the intellectual property for the platform, despite a public investment of nearly $300 million.
How exactly is that a success for the public?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
As a technological success, as we've heard, the highway works. The highway has been built. The challenge is in the adoption at the provinces and territories level.