Conservative MPs want the auditor general to investigate PrescribeIT, a federally funded e-prescribing program that Canada Health Infoway says will end May 29.
Conservative MPs are asking the auditor general to investigate the federal government’s handling of PrescribeIT, a $250-million electronic prescribing program launched to modernize how doctors send prescriptions to pharmacies.
The request follows confirmation from Canada Health Infoway, the federally funded not-for-profit that runs the program, that PrescribeIT will end May 29 as it moves to an “open-standards approach” for electronic prescriptions. The program began in 2017 with the goal of reducing reliance on older technology, including fax machines.
At a news conference Monday on Parliament Hill, Conservative MP Dan Mazier, the party’s health critic, said reporting by The Globe and Mail that suggested fewer than five per cent of prescriptions are sent through PrescribeIT prompted the party’s scrutiny. Mazier said the project was first announced in 2016 with a $40-million budget and alleged its cost has grown to more than $300 million over the last decade.
“So what did Canadians get for their $300 million? Well, that’s the $300-million question. Because as of today, doctors are still faxing prescriptions,” Mazier said.
Mazier said Conservatives have been trying to obtain documents about PrescribeIT through committee work, and accused the government of delaying those efforts before parliamentary committees are restructured to reflect the Liberals’ new majority in the House of Commons. He also raised questions about who owns the intellectual property connected to the program.
During an April 21 committee review, MPs were told Canada Health Infoway hired Telus Health to design PrescribeIT and that Telus received $98 million for its work. In response to an order paper question, Health Canada said the federal government “holds no intellectual property pertaining to PrescribeIT.” Ratcho Batchvarov, vice-president of provider solutions with Telus Health, told the committee Telus already owned 85 per cent of the intellectual property used as the basis for the program and said it could not be transferred or maintained without Telus’s involvement.
Bloc Québécois MP Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, vice-chair of the House of Commons health committee along with Mazier, supported the call for an auditor general inquiry, saying in a French statement to The Canadian Press that federal IT contracts too often show poor management, weak oversight and high costs.
The office of federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel said PrescribeIT had been intended to become self-sufficient but did not reach that point. “Given the low uptake of the program, it was clear there was no path to self-sufficiency, so the program was ended,” Guillaume Bertrand, Michel’s director of communications, wrote in an email. “Our government believes in getting value for taxpayer dollars, and ending PrescribeIT was the financially responsible thing to do.”
The next question is whether the auditor general will agree to examine the program, and whether committee documents sought by opposition MPs will be released before the program’s scheduled end.
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