A pharmacist works behind the counter of the 360Care Denman Pharmacy in Vancouver.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Conservative members of Parliament are calling on the Auditor-General to investigate nearly $300-million in federal spending on a digital prescription program that is being cancelled because few doctors used it.
PrescribeIT was launched in 2017 as part of “axe the fax” initiatives to replace fax machines with digital alternatives, in this case transmitting prescriptions from doctors’ offices to pharmacies digitally.
A government-funded non-profit called Canada Health Infoway ran the project, with Telus Health as a primary vendor.
Conservative MP Dan Mazier said Monday an investigation by the Auditor-General was needed to study how the money was spent and why fewer than 5 per cent of prescriptions were sent through the service.
“The $300-million question is simple: Who got rich? It’s time to call in the auditors,” Mr. Mazier said at a news conference on Parliament Hill, accompanied by his colleagues Burton Bailey, Helena Konanz and Matt Strauss.
The four MPs sit on the House of Commons health committee, which began to hold hearings on PrescribeIT after The Globe and Mail revealed in February that the project was being cancelled because of poor results.
Their investigation has also been supported by Bloc Québécois MP Maxime Blanchette-Joncas.
Dr. Strauss said he never saw PrescribeIT in use in his 13 years of practising in communities around Ontario.
He said the money could have been better spent: “$300-million could have built multiple community hospitals,” he said.
MPs on the health committee summoned Canada Health Infoway’s chief executive officer Michael Green, along with officials from Health Canada and Telus Health, last week but received few answers about how the budget was spent. They voted unanimously to summon Mr. Green, the board chair of Canada Health Infoway and a representative of Telus Health for more testimony by May 6.
Initial estimates put the total federal costs of PrescribeIT at about $250-million, but Health Canada officials said at the hearing that the actual spending was more than $298-million.
About $98-million of that went to Telus Health as the main technology vendor. A Telus Health executive said the company retained the 85 per cent of the intellectual property underpinning PrescribeIT and is considering relaunching it in the future.
The Globe and Mail previously reported that the government had begun to reduce funding for PrescribeIT in recent years. That led Canada Health Infoway to begin charging pharmacists $0.20 per prescription to use the service, which led many to stop.
Canada Health Infoway also began a process to sell PrescribeIT to a private partner, but that was scrapped when the board decided at the end of last year to close the program down, according to testimony from Mr. Green last week.
Guillaume Bertrand, director of communications for Health Minister Marjorie Michel, said PrescribeIT was launched by the previous federal government in consultation with provinces and territories. (Both Ms. Michel and Prime Minister Mark Carney came to office last year.)
He said the program was intended to be financially self-sufficient. “Given the low uptake of the program, it was clear there was no path to self-sufficiency, so the program was ended,” he said in an e-mail.
“Our government believes in getting value for taxpayer dollars, and ending PrescribeIT was the financially responsible thing to do.”
The health committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss options to continue the investigation of PrescribeIT.
Canada Health Infoway said in an unsigned statement that it believed it fulfilled its mandate to deliver a technical foundation for digital prescriptions and that it was subject to oversight from its board of directors, which includes representatives of federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The Senate is currently studying Bill S-5, which would set national standards for digital health records to make it easier for patients and health care providers to share data. Canada Health Infoway is expected to have a leadership role in implementing the new rules if the legislation passes.