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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you, Dr. Strauss. That's very well done. I appreciate your co-operation in this way.
Now we will—
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Riding Mountain, MB
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I'd just like some clarification. We are running until what time?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Okay. Thank you.
Now we will go to Dr. Jaczek for five minutes.
Please go ahead.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
There have been a lot of important questions asked. Obviously, your responses are duly noted.
Dr. Vaughan, you made it very clear that you feel that every other jurisdiction that has put in place a PrescribeIT-like program has provided incentives to physicians to use the program and has also, in some cases, mandated through legislation that this program be adopted.
When did you make it clear that this was your strong opinion, actually, through the process, since you became chair of the board?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
It was clear early on that we were going to need mandating or legislation, and we talked to all of the provinces and territories around that. All the provinces and territories are at different places in this journey, and they have different priorities. Also, governments change. When governments change, priorities change. Therefore, it's an ongoing education where we're trying to educate new people coming in around what we are doing, what we are trying to do and the need to look at incentives and legislation.
In my own province of Nova Scotia, we brought in legislation to connect electronic medical records across the province. The opportunity for us going forward in Nova Scotia is very much a part of the open standards approach, because it fits in perfectly with the Nova Scotia needs.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Are you suggesting that with the open standards going forward there will be a need...? Well, is it either-or, incentives or mandates?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
That's a good question.
My sense from the international literature is very strong that mandating and incentives are what it takes to achieve adoption, just as we saw with electronic medical records 20 years ago.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
In your consultations, you've mentioned deputy ministers. To what extent did you involve, in the promotion of the program...? You knew you didn't have financial incentives or mandates, so presumably you consulted broadly with medical associations, because deputy ministers could possibly be a little isolated from the field. Can you explain what kind of promotional activities you engaged in specifically to try to get more prescribers involved?
Board Chair, Canada Health Infoway
I'll ask my colleague to answer with the details.
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
We undertook significant marketing awareness and stakeholder relations campaigns, including with provinces and territories. We met with them at a senior level, the deputy minister level, as well as at a staff level with the digital health groups, to work with them. The work with them was ongoing.
In addition to that, we did significant work with physicians. With pharmacists, we actually ran special programs where we had pharmacies in a community—
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Excuse me. You did have success with pharmacies, but I'm interested in the prescribers piece.
Strategic Advisor, Canada Health Infoway
That's right. What I was saying was that we used pharmacies in communities to reach out to their prescribers to try to bring them on board to help build adoption of the system. The work we did was multi-faceted.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Mr. El-Demerdash, you talked about your clinical advisory board. When did you establish that?
President, Telus Health
We use clinical advisory boards frequently for many of the products we have to solicit feedback on and to learn what needs are out there. In this specific scenario, the clinical advisory board was in the early part of 2021.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Did you hear about incentives, or “I'm not mandated to do it”? Did you get any kind of feedback along that line, or was it purely technical and related to the software?
President, Telus Health
The primary point of the feedback we received from the advisory board was around their wanting the process and the system to be a lot more frictionless for them in the way they did their work, in some cases taking into consideration their normal workflow and the normal way they did their work.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you, Dr. Jaczek. Your time is up. It's 5:05.
We will now go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.
Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, let's speak one person at a time. Because of the interpretation, I won't be in between you both, so please pay attention.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
Mr. Chair, you know that my speaking time is very limited compared to the other members of the committee. When I don't get an answer from the witnesses, it's more difficult.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
It's also your role to ensure that witnesses answer questions when they don't.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
I can give them the time. I can't dictate what answers they should give. It's up to them. All I can say is that I give them the time. It's up to you to ask questions again or to make comments.
Let's start now with two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC
I'm asking the questions, but I need your help to get answers.