Tim Louis, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy (Intergovernmental Affairs and One Canadian Economy)
“We stopped funding the PrescribeIT program because hardly anyone was using it. It only filled five percent of prescriptions. The plan was always for it to pay for itself eventually. We are spending that money on other ways to improve health data instead.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her question, and I will say many of the things to her that I said to the member’s colleagues. As my colleague knows, PrescribeIT was launched by the previous government in collaboration with Canada Health Infoway, the provinces and territories because it saw that there was a need for it. The provinces and territories wanted to move doctors and pharmacies away from using fax machines and toward a system where important health care data could be sent electronically. Infoway was chosen for the job because it had received funding from Liberal and Conservative governments alike since 2001. The organization has long been a place for federal, provincial and territorial governments to come together to work on improving Canada’s health data infrastructure. The resulting program, PrescribeIT, was launched in 2017, following extensive consultations with the provinces and territories. It is important to note that the goal was never to have the federal government fund PrescribeIT indefinitely. From the outset, the plan was for the program to be self-funded over time. This meant that, when our new government came into office last year, we took a hard look at what was working and what was not working. We take our responsibility as stewards and watchdogs for taxpayer dollars very seriously. We saw that PrescribeIT did not have the level of pick up that was expected when it launched nearly a decade ago. As was mentioned, only 5% of prescriptions were filled using the system. Rather than continuing to fund a program that no one was using, we decided to end funding for PrescribeIT. At a time when Canadians expect that we will spend health care dollars wisely and carefully, we wanted to make sure that we were investing taxpayer money in a way that delivers the greatest benefit to patients and the health system alike. Are there questions about the future of lnfoway following this decision? Of course there are. That is why we are refocusing government spending and ensuring that Canada Health lnfoway focuses on what it was intended to do, which is to build up Canada’s health data infrastructure and support the development of national health data standards. This work is important, and it speaks to the future of Canada’s health care system. Canadians deserve and expect a system that meets their needs and adapts to the world as the flow of information changes. Our government will always be there for Canadians, for our health care sector, and for our provincial and territorial partners, to make sure that we are helping to deliver health care in a way that puts the needs of patients first.”
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her question, and I will say many of the things to her that I said to the member’s colleagues. As my colleague knows, PrescribeIT was launched by the previous government in collaboration with Canada Health Infoway, the provinces and territories because it saw that there was a need for it. The provinces and territories wanted to move doctors and pharmacies away from using fax machines and toward a system where important health care data could be sent electronically. Infoway was chosen for the job because it had received funding from Liberal and Conservative governments alike since 2001. The organization has long been a place for federal, provincial and territorial governments to come together to work on improving Canada’s health data infrastructure. The resulting program, PrescribeIT, was launched in 2017, following extensive consultations with the provinces and territories. It is important to note that the goal was never to have the federal government fund PrescribeIT indefinitely. From the outset, the plan was for the program to be self-funded over time. This meant that, when our new government came into office last year, we took a hard look at what was working and what was not working. We take our responsibility as stewards and watchdogs for taxpayer dollars very seriously. We saw that PrescribeIT did not have the level of pick up that was expected when it launched nearly a decade ago. As was mentioned, only 5% of prescriptions were filled using the system. Rather than continuing to fund a program that no one was using, we decided to end funding for PrescribeIT. At a time when Canadians expect that we will spend health care dollars wisely and carefully, we wanted to make sure that we were investing taxpayer money in a way that delivers the greatest benefit to patients and the health system alike. Are there questions about the future of lnfoway following this decision? Of course there are. That is why we are refocusing government spending and ensuring that Canada Health lnfoway focuses on what it was intended to do, which is to build up Canada’s health data infrastructure and support the development of national health data standards. This work is important, and it speaks to the future of Canada’s health care system. Canadians deserve and expect a system that meets their needs and adapts to the world as the flow of information changes. Our government will always be there for Canadians, for our health care sector, and for our provincial and territorial partners, to make sure that we are helping to deliver health care in a way that puts the needs of patients first.