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
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Was his salary publicly available before then, and if so, where?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
It was publicly available in documents submitted to the federal government, provinces and territories.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Can you table with the committee all compensation disclosures since 2016-17?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
If the committee is looking for that, we'd be happy to provide it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you very much.
Now we will go to Mr. Sawatzky for five minutes.
Please go ahead.
Liberal
Jake Sawatzky Liberal New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.
My first question is for Telus Health.
Could you walk the committee through how PrescribeIT was originally developed, and particularly how key partners were brought in and how decisions were made about the platform structure and delivery?
President, Telus Health
In 2017, when the RFP was awarded to us, we began the implementation per the design that was put forth to us by Canada Health Infoway as part of the RFP process. We had our own technology that we brought to the table, the approximately 85% of the IP mentioned earlier, to go along with developing the remainder per the specification that we had.
We did not have any subcontracted work per se. Some fixed-term contractors joined our team in the period between 2017 and 2020 and brought in some technical expertise, but they were essentially acting as team members within our organization to help in the software development of that 15% of IP.
Liberal
Jake Sawatzky Liberal New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC
How was that 85% determined? How was that number landed on?
President, Telus Health
There's no precise way. It's an approximation based on the full solution and looking at the components of it.
In reality, when we consider the specific components that are in the IP that is owned by Canada Health Infoway, it's based on the specific implementations that were requested of us. The 85% and 15% are essentially approximations, not a mathematical equation.
Liberal
Jake Sawatzky Liberal New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC
To what extent were there issues with the application itself that might have affected the adoption of this technology, whether in terms of functionality, usability, reliability or integration into clinical workflows?
President, Telus Health
The technology itself functioned precisely to the specifications that we were given and was at a 99.9% uptime. In fact, we were held accountable to reach that, and in some cases, we actually gave some credits back to Canada Health Infoway when, for one reason or another, it fell below 99%.
However, as I mentioned earlier, we did convene a clinical advisory board that, based on their perspective, helped us to identify that the design specifications for the user interface were not necessarily done in a way that aligned with the natural workflow of the prescribers. That made it a bit more difficult for them to complete the prescription activity, and more difficult as well for the onboarding process.
Those were recommendations that we provided to Canada Health Infoway in April 2021 in an attempt to help provide some of that feedback.
Liberal
Jake Sawatzky Liberal New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC
Thank you.
If providers and provinces were not satisfied with the product, what efforts did Telus make to modernize or adapt the program to make it more attractive?
President, Telus Health
It is important to recognize that we were developing the solution as per the contract that we had in place with Canada Health Infoway and that we were governed by developing and delivering on the specifications that we were given by Canada Health Infoway.
What we did along the way was meet those specifications that we were given exactly, to the letter. We did provide some ideas and recommendations, but it was up to Canada Health Infoway to come back to us and request that those changes be put in place.
Liberal
Jake Sawatzky Liberal New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC
How often did Telus update, modify and modernize the product? Did it take steps to solicit customer feedback to inform improvements?
President, Telus Health
The clinical advisory board was one of the ways we got feedback and provided feedback to Canada Health Infoway.
Another prominent way we did that was to put together this e-prescription white paper that was released last year. It provides overall recommendations, including the importance of having mandates and standards in place to drive adoption for e-prescription.
On the initial part of the question, which was on how often we made changes to the product, those were all governed by the process for the change orders that we received. We received 59 change orders through the life of the program, and we implemented all of those.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you.
Before we go to the next member, I would love to welcome member of Parliament Fancy to the committee.
With that, we will go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.
Please go ahead.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Dr. Vaughan, can you confirm that TELUS holds about 85% of intellectual property related to the PrescripTIon platform?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
I think that is a correct estimate, given that they have the ability in their hub to integrate a variety of products.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Thank you.
In concrete terms, who negotiated this agreement?
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
Thank you, sir.
The negotiation for Telus was a fairly deep process. We had an RFP process that led to the selection of Telus—
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
I'll repeat my question: Who negotiated this agreement?
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
Infoway negotiated with Telus, with the aid of a professional negotiator.