Harb Gill

“Mr. Speaker, today, I rise on behalf of the great people of Edmonton Southeast to discuss Bill S-5, the connected care for Canadians act. No Canadian needs reminding of the challenges facing our health care system. On this side of the House, we believe Canadians deserve timely, world-class health care when they need it, regardless of their financial circumstances, yet too many Canadians are waiting for a family doctor, a specialist appointment or a procedure that would allow them to return to work and live without pain. Canadians need better care. In many cases, their lives depend on it. While provinces and territories are responsible for delivering health care, the federal government has a responsibility to work constructively with them to improve access and support better outcomes. Bill S-5 presents an opportunity to address one part of this challenge, the difficulty of sharing health information between the professionals responsible for a patient’s care. The principle of this legislation is common sense. However, much more work is needed to ensure that this bill would deliver meaningful improvements for patients. In Alberta, we know that a gap in communication can have serious consequences. In 2012, Greg Price died at just 31 years of age. A subsequent inquiry found that poor communication between providers and breaks in the continuity of care contributed to his death. His family has since worked to ensure that others learn from their tragic experience. More recently, tragedy struck closer to home. Last December, Prashant Sreekumar, a 44-year-old father of three, died at Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton Southeast after he waited nearly eight hours to see a doctor for chest pain. These cases involved different circumstances, and we should be careful not to suggest that one piece of legislation could have prevented everything that went wrong, but these stories demonstrate why this issue is important. When patients are referred to specialists, they should know whether their referral has been received and who is responsible for following up. When important test results become available, those results must reach the right professionals and therefore be acted upon. A patient dealing with a serious illness should not have to chase records and coordinate communication between medical offices. That responsibility should not fall on a family already worried about the health of someone they love. Bill S-5 would require health information technology vendors to ensure their systems can communicate with one another. It would also prohibit data blocking, subject to regulations. Put simply, a patient’s information should be able to follow them securely through their care. A commercial interest in keeping customers tied to one software system should not prevent the appropriate sharing of information needed to treat a patient. It is a practical goal that Conservatives support. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, in 2024, only 68% of hip replacement and 61% of knee replacements were completed within the recommended six-month benchmark. Median waits for MRI scans were also 15 days longer than they were in 2019. These delays have consequences. For a person waiting for knee replacement, it may mean months of difficulty in walking, working or caring for their family. For someone waiting for a scan, it can mean prolonged uncertainty about a potentially serious condition. Better information sharing can help prevent unnecessary repeat tests and the delay caused by missing records, but connecting computer systems will not on its own add more doctors or create additional surgical capacity. Canadians need a broader effort to improve access. The government must explain how this legislation will contribute to that work and how its results will be measured. We must also consider the people delivering care. Doctors enter medicine to help patients, yet too much of their working time is consumed by unnecessary administrative tasks. A joint survey by the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that physicians in Canada spend nearly 20 million hours each year on unnecessary administrative work. Disconnected records are only one part of that burden, but that is a part we should address. When clinic staff repeatedly request the same records or a physician must enter information already held in another system, valuable time is lost. That time could be used to see patients. The question is whether Bill S-5 would make that work easier. Would referrals become simpler to track? Would doctors spend less time searching for results? Would small clinics receive the training and support needed to adopt new systems? We cannot promise less paperwork while creating another complicated process for doctors to manage. Frontline professionals must be involved in developing these requirements. Furthermore, Canadians must have confidence that their personal health information is protected. Health records contains some of the most sensitive details of a person’s life, including their mental health history, prescriptions and diagnoses. Patients share that information because they trust their health care providers. That trust must be maintained. Protecting confidential information must not be confused with improperly withholding it for commercial reasons. During the Senate committee review, stakeholders recommended baseline security requirements for vendors, including encryption, strong authentication and records of who accesses information. These recommendations deserve serious consideration. Doctors should not be expected to become cybersecurity experts to determine whether a vendor’s product is adequately protected. Vendors must have clear responsibilities for maintaining safeguards, and patients need clear answers about how their information can be used and what happens if it is compromised. Finally, much of this legislation would depend on regulations developed after it were passed. These regulations would address standards, enforcement and the legislation’s application within provinces and territories, which may also require careful examination. Provinces, health care professionals and patients deserve clarity about what would be required, what it would cost and who would be accountable. Conservatives believe in health care that delivers for its patients, but ultimately what Canadians need are shorter wait times, reliable follow-ups, seamless information transfers, and doctors who have more time to practise medicine rather than working on endless paperwork.”