Nearly 5 million patients across Ontario may now have an electronic medical record in their doctor’s office but critics argue the province is still “light years” behind others.
Health Minister Deb Matthews announced Tuesday 5,500 doctors now can manage patients’ health files electronically — a jump of more than 80 per cent in one year.
This good news announcement comes more than one year after Auditor General Jim McCarter issued a scathing report on how the province’s attempt at electronic health records had loosely spent nearly $1 billion of taxpayer’s funds with little to show for it.
However, Matthews said new leadership at eHealth Ontario — the province’s flagship agency working to bring electronic health records to everyone by 2015 — has turned the ship around and progress is being made.
Last year the electronic records scandal gripped Queen’s Park and caused the departure of several key players in Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government including Health Minister David Caplan.
Documents obtained by the Star revealed eHealth awarded millions of dollars in sole-sourced contracts, executives were given perks and paid lucrative bonuses while consultants were paid nearly $3,000 a day. To the ire of taxpayers, some of those high-paid consultants expensed $1.65 cups of tea.
But now is the time to look forward, not backward, Matthews told a news conference Tuesday at the Taddle Creek Family Health Team office on Bay St.
“Work on this has kept going,” Matthews said, noting a modern health system means paperless medical records. The records allow doctors to quickly access lab and test results and they cut down on medical errors when physicians write and renew prescriptions.
“There is much more to do but when it comes to eHealth we have clicked to the next page and we are on track delivering results for Ontarians.”
After an extensive national search, Greg Reed was appointed CEO and president about seven months ago. Reed is a Harvard Business School graduate who previously had a career in resuscitating distressed companies.
Political health critics argue Ontario is still “light years” behind the rest of the country when it comes to EMRs.
Health professionals still can’t speak to each other on one system, said Progressive Conservative MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa). “What we have now is a system in doctor’s offices where they have electronic records,” Elliott said. “What we need to do is make sure that all the other health professionals and institutions are able to talk to each other. We aren’t even close to that.”
Ontario is the “laughing stock” internationally because of the way the province is preceding, Elliott added. “We are given to understand it will cost another $5 (billion) to $10 billion before we have a system that is up and running,” she said. “Every other Canadian province is ahead of us.”
Doctors have been given $28,000 over 3 years to bring electronic medical records to their offices. Physicians can choose from 12 different vendors when buying software, Reed said.
While the medical records in doctor’s offices and clinics won’t look the same across the province and they all can’t talk to each other, they will all essentially perform the same function, he said.
“There are different levels of linkages,” Reed said. Some hospitals and doctors offices are linked up near big teaching hospitals but that isn’t the case everywhere.
“One of the things we have to do is build the network of networks so that no matter where you are in the province you can access information from the hospitals that your patients are referred to,” he said. “That is work that is ahead of us.”
New Democrat MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) said the eHealth announcement is a small step but in reality means little. Doctors can now computerize their appointments and figure out drug interactions online — but most physicians had those capabilities before, she said. “Right now, do those computers connect to anything that allows them to do their work better than before? Not really.”
Thanks to http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/ehealth/article/884488--5-million-patients-get-electronic-medical-records?bn=1#article submit for this.
