Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, June 3, 2009

We're still behind on health file

How long have we had bar codes on our groceries? Can you imagine a world without bank machines? And how would you communicate with friends and family if e-mail and SMS messaging didn't exist?

Technology in our lives is ubiquitous and, for the most part, it has been beneficial. However, technology as an infrastructure and administrative backbone is only in its embryonic stages in our health-care sector.

Consider the issue of electronic health records. Here in Ontario, we -- read: Taxpayers -- have spent almost $850 million to date for something called eHealth Ontario (and its predecessor, the Smart Systems for Health Agency). Yet province-wide electronic health records are still a dream until 2015 ... at the earliest.

And eHealth Ontario is now all over the news as freedom of information requests reveal the agency spent almost $5 million in untendered contracts in less than six months, racked up big time travel costs, and the litany of dubious and headline-grabbing expenses goes on.

The media, opposition parties and provincial auditor general are all over this boondoggle with Health Minister David Caplan uncomfortably in damage control mode. He has ordered an independent third-party review of eHealth's spending.

Meanwhile, most doctors continue to scrawl out prescriptions in chicken scratch and medical couriers still earn their keep by physically transporting X-rays and test results between various health-care sites, especially when folks move from the hospital back to their family doctor or to a specialist for the next stage of their treatment. This takes time, costs money and, in the end, diminishes patient outcomes.

Public investment into technology that protects patient privacy, eliminates duplication of tests and paperwork, helps move patients through our health system quickly and reduces errors or automatically reminds us when tests or periodic vaccinations are due is a no-brainer.

So why can't Ontario, supposedly the innovation engine of the Canadian economy, get it right on this file? Ontario taxpayers were dinged to the tune of more than $640 million -- according to the opposition parties -- for the now-defunct Smart Systems for Health agency (set up in 2002, then nuked in 2007) for lack of progress. And now eHealth Ontario, in just 10 short months, seems to be eclipsing its predecessor for controversy and mismanagement. Even more disturbing is the progress of other provinces where they accomplish more and spend less by comparison. The Canadian Press recently noted Canada Health Infoway -- the not-for-profit organization that works with governments and other stakeholders to accelerate the implementation and expand the use of electronic health records -- says Alberta, P.E.I. and the Northwest Territories should have functional electronic health records in place by 2010. And Quebec and British Columbia will be online, pun intended, shortly thereafter.

As for the third-party review ordered by the minister, guess who pays for that? And the legislative committee process, if it gets off the ground, to haul eHealth CEO Linda Kramer and her team in for questioning, who is on the hook for this process? And if any heads roll at eHealth, any bets on who will pay for the six-figure severance payouts?

Meanwhile, we are no further ahead on the electronic health records file.

In a related twist, NDP Leader Jack Layton is off to Washington, D.C., to lecture Americans as to why our publicly administered health system is superior to theirs. Let's just hope nobody asks him about the scandal at Ontario's eHealth. It's not the example we need to be exporting abroad.