Conservative MPs are demanding an audit on PrescribeIT, the e-prescription program that is currently being wound down.
Dan Mazier, Conservative Shadow Minister for Health, leads the clarion call in investigating the $300 million federal project and should projects of such nature remain partly or largely in private hands.
Non-profit Canada Health Infoway launched the program in 2017 and is now scheduled to conclude on May 29.
The controversy sharpened when the spending for the project is said to have reached $298 million as per Health Canada’s figures. This includes $98 million that went to Telus Health as the technology vendor, yielding a total that is higher than the $250 million pegged for the project.
The scale of use was the bigger problem. 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.
Infoway CEO Michael Green, Health Canada officials, and Telus Health representatives have been summoned by the House’s health committee last week. They are scheduled to come back to the committee in the next hearing on May 6.
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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One Response
Add up all of these “failed” systems and apply those amounts to homelessness and food banks and we would have a much better Canada. Better yet, don’t have government involved at all.