Conservative MPs are asking the Auditor-General to investigate nearly $300 million in federal spending on PrescribeIT, the digital prescription system being wound down after failing to replace fax machines at meaningful scale.
Conservative MP Dan Mazier said that an audit is needed to determine how the program missed its objective, where the money went, and why Parliament has received limited answers from the organizations involved.
“Most Canadians have never heard of PrescribeIT, and that’s the way the Liberals wanted it,” Mazier said, appearing with Conservative MPs Burton Bailey, Helena Konanz and Matt Strauss.
PrescribeIT was launched in 2017 by Canada Health Infoway, a federally funded not-for-profit, as part of broader “axe the fax” efforts to move prescriptions from phone, paper and fax workflows into secure electronic transmission between doctors’ offices and pharmacies. Infoway says the service has operated since 2018 in collaboration with federal, provincial and territorial partners, but “national adoption of e-prescribing through a centrally operated service has not reached the scale required to support long-term sustainability.”
The program is now scheduled to conclude on May 29 with Infoway shifting to a publicly available national e-prescribing standard instead of continuing a single centrally operated service. Infoway says the standard is intended to let jurisdictions and vendors advance e-prescribing according to local priorities, readiness and implementation timelines.
Spending and adoption
The controversy sharpened after Health Canada said federal spending on PrescribeIT totaled $298 million, higher than earlier estimates of roughly $250 million.
About $98 million went to Telus Health, the main technology vendor, part of Telus Corp.
The scale of use was the bigger problem. A Globe and Mail report cited by CanHealth said fewer than 5% of prescriptions were sent electronically in Canada each year, even after PrescribeIT had signed up thousands of pharmacies and doctor’s offices.
The same report said PrescribeIT was live in eight provinces and territories and being trialled in Quebec, but still failed to reach the scale needed to displace entrenched fax and paper workflows.
The service also carried annual costs of around $35 million in recent years, according to public-record figures cited in reports on the cancellation.
Parliament probe
MPs on the House of Commons health committee summoned Infoway CEO Michael Green, Health Canada officials, and Telus Health representatives last week, but committee members said they received few clear answers on how the budget was spent. The committee then voted unanimously to summon Green, Infoway’s board chair, and a Telus Health representative for further testimony.
A written Order Paper question from Mazier had already asked the government to provide the total federal funding for PrescribeIT since 2017, annual breakdowns, the original approved budget, annual operating costs by category, undisbursed committed funding, total direct and indirect federal investment, and how much Ottawa expects to recover after cancellation.
Health Canada responded by saying, “this information is not centrally tracked by Health Canada,” and pointed the question back to Infoway.
The health committee was scheduled to meet Tuesday to consider an emergency motion on options to continue the investigation.
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