Thank you very much for the question.
As both the Auditor General and Mr. Alvarez have noted earlier today, the federal government has given significant sums of money to Infoway over a period of time. I think that does show the understanding of the federal government that this does have benefits. It has been both Liberal and Conservative governments that have given funds. The benefits that can accrue to the system are apparent to different people.
I did ask my colleagues at Infoway just the other week. Mr. Alvarez said if you look at what we call EMRs, electronic medical records—that's what the community doctor, the family doctor, has in her or his office—Canada is dead last. I asked him if you looked at the EHR, the components drug information system, diagnostic imaging lab results, where would Canada stand? And the answer was that you would turn that around and Canada would be at the top.
Other countries have focused first on EMRs and they haven't necessarily taken a national approach. It's been a local doctor, and it's been that doctor and that doctor's patients who have had the benefit. What Canada has done, largely through Infoway's blueprint, has been to develop what I'll call the unsexy components of electronic health records.
And I'm very pleased with the latest $500 million investment. There is a big focus on the electronic medical records, because that is when physicians and Canadians will really see the benefits of all the foundational work that Infoway has done with the partners in the provinces and jurisdictions.
As Mr. Young said, that drug information database is not really useful until a doctor is using it when he or she is prescribing to a patient. Right now it's good at the pharmacy, but you also would like the physician to have that information when the physician is prescribing. You would also like to have the patient, himself or herself, be able to access that information.
So as we're now really accelerating that implementation of EMRs, I think you'll see the benefits accruing and you'll see more physicians moving to EMRs.