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
Matt Strauss Conservative Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
“Corporate objectives” sounds rather abstract. Concretely, specifically, is there a tangible benefit to taxpayers that you can think of that Mr. Green delivered?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
The financial accounting, reporting and contribution agreements that were externally audited all showed a well-run organization.
Conservative
Matt Strauss Conservative Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I thank you for the answer, but I don't hear anything concrete and specific that taxpayers benefited from.
I understand that Mr. Green was dismissed at a board meeting that had not been regularly occurring. It was an unscheduled meeting. Then it was scheduled. When was it scheduled?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
It was called last Wednesday. I don't remember the date.
Conservative
Matt Strauss Conservative Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Was that the day after his testimony to this committee, or was it a week after?
Conservative
Matt Strauss Conservative Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you.
I understand that Canada Health Infoway has received a total of $4 billion from governments over the last 20 years. What concrete, tangible, specific examples of benefit has the Canadian taxpayer received from that $4 billion?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
Canada Health Infoway was instrumental in the digitization of diagnostic imaging, laboratory services and electronic medical records. All those pieces of the puzzle were a part of the Canada Health Infoway remit.
Conservative
Matt Strauss Conservative Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I have to contest that.
Your memory will go back further than mine. I was a medical student in 2004. I was working in hospitals. Radiology was already digitized in the Kitchener hospital where I volunteered. I don't see that Canada Health Infoway had anything to do with that.
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
Canada Health Infoway had a significant role in rolling out federal funding to the provinces and territories to lead and allow the adoption of diagnostic imaging and medical record evolution in digitizing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you.
We will go to honourable parliamentary secretary Chi.
Go ahead, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Maggie Chi Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for coming.
I'm not too sure who this question would be directed towards.
The last time we had Telus Health and Canada Health Infoway here, we discovered that Telus Health owned 85% of the IP. Infoway owned 15%, through the rollout of the program.
I just wanted some clarification, because in some of the notes I've read, I see that there was consultation with folks during the development of the program. What did that look like? When you first started consulting with physicians, pharmacists and people who would use the program, what were some early flags? How were they working the program?
I'm also aware that there were several change orders as part of the program management. If you can describe those to us, it would be great.
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
I'll ask my colleague, who's been with the program the entire time.
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
Consultations with the physicians actually identified new opportunities for new functionality and improvements in existing functionality. We then executed change orders to require the Telus system to adapt to those needs.
Liberal
Maggie Chi Liberal Don Valley North, ON
To follow up on that, another note says that the physician-clinician adoption rate isn't high compared to adoption by pharmacists.
I want to try to understand why that's the case. Through the course of the program, why wasn't that addressed in order to increase the adoption rate? Was it because it wasn't changed fast enough when you submitted the change order? What were some of the issues?
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
The adoption by physicians was very different because the nature of the work is very different.
A pharmacist works and uses their skills in a digital environment. A physician or a family doctor, while using electronic health records, is generally focused on the patients themselves, so getting them to use a functionality in a workflow to share this information digitally is different.
There are other technologies out there, like eFax and such, that are also forms of electronic prescribing, but they're not digital data prescribing. That's different. The security and privacy and the different elements that PrescribeIT offered were significant, in addition to functionality like clinical comms.
Liberal
Maggie Chi Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you.
That will lead to my next two questions, probably for either Dr. Vaughan or Ms. Ensor.
I know Canada Health Infoway has described the next step as the setting up of the national standard. If the challenge was with some of the digital records or EMRs not being able to be online, or the adoption rate, how do you work through that in order for the national standard to be successful, looking forward?
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
That's a really great question. The challenge will continue to plague us until we look at a systemized way to digitize our systems, to make interoperability a requirement, not only for provinces and territories but for federal members as well.
It is important that we work together as one voice. It's critical that provinces and territories continue to deliver on health care, as it is their requirement, but there does need to be a national standard set out by Canada as to what adoption should look like.
Liberal
Maggie Chi Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Currently, Infoway sits on 15% of the IP. Would that serve as a good foundation going forward, or do you still need some sort of work to make it work?
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
Thank you, sir.
To clarify on the IP, we are now working with provinces and territories very closely to help support their goals for the next stage of e-prescribing for their future. That may be for some provinces to work with Telus.
In that case, we are offering to those provinces and territories directly that 15% of IP, to allow them to take advantage of the full functionality that was available under PrescribeIT.
Another feature that we haven't had an opportunity to talk about is the custom technology that we developed as a backup in case the tele-system should fail or need to be replaced. That too is being offered to provinces and territories for their futures.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you very much.
We will go to Mr. Mazier for five minutes. Please, go ahead.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Vaughan, are you aware that Canada Health Infoway's executive vice-president, Abhi Kalra, was previously employed as pharmacy and health care director of information technology by Loblaw Companies Limited, which is the parent company of Shoppers Drug Mart, yes or no?