Fewer than 5 per cent of prescriptions flowed through the PrescribeIT program, despite $300-million in federal funds spent on it.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
The head of an organization that oversaw a $300-million federal digital prescription service has been removed in the midst of a probe by a parliamentary committee into how the program failed.
The board of Canada Health Infoway, a government-funded non-profit, dismissed Michael Green as chief executive officer on Wednesday after more than 11 years in the role.
Board chair Peter Vaughan said in a statement that the decision was effective immediately.
Canada Health Infoway launched a program called PrescribeIT 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.
PrescribeIT has received more than $298-million in federal funds since launch, but as a Globe and Mail report revealed in February, fewer than 5 per cent of prescriptions have flowed through the service. Ottawa announced PrescribeIT would close May 29.
The House of Commons health committee summoned Mr. Green and other witnesses last week to explain what went wrong. Members of Parliament of all parties grew visibly frustrated with Mr. Green’s lack of answers, including to questions about what he was paid.
Canada Health Infoway provided some documents to the committee last Friday in answer to their questions, and this week the organization posted a compensation disclosure on its website.
It revealed that Mr. Green was paid nearly $900,000 in total compensation in the 2024-25 fiscal year. That was broken down as: $616,700 in base salary, $215,845 in bonuses and $51,569 in taxable benefits, including RRSP employer contributions, group insurance and a car allowance.
Conservative MP Dan Mazier, who has pushed for the committee’s investigation into PrescribeIT, said he does not understand how Mr. Green earned such large bonuses when it was clear the program wasn’t working.
“It’s absolutely outrageous,” he said.
Mr. Mazier said the government had tools to audit and evaluate Canada Health Infoway and did not act quickly enough.
“Conservatives won’t stop until we find out where every dollar went and who else got rich,” he said.
The health committee voted unanimously Tuesday to request the Auditor-General of Canada conduct an audit of PrescribeIT, including its costs, governance and intellectual property arrangements.
The office of the Auditor-General said on Wednesday that it was reviewing the committee’s request. The office makes decisions about audits independently and weighs factors such as available resources.
An executive of Telus Health testified last week that the company had been paid $98-million as the main technological vendor for PrescribeIT and owned 85 per cent of the intellectual property underpinning the program.
MPs press official on why $250-million ‘axe the fax’ digital prescribing program failed
Telus Health disclosed in a submission to the committee that its initial contract with Canada Health Infoway paid out $5-million a year in base service fees, $4-million in licensing fees and $500,000 in development credit.
In March, 2024, the contract was renewed for five years with the base fees increasing to $7-million a year. That contract was terminated early on Feb. 5.
A further $10.9-million was paid out for change orders, the Telus Health document said.
The service’s low uptake was not a responsibility of Telus Health, the company said. “Firstly, we need to be clear that adoption was the responsibility of the program owner – Canada Health Infoway. We are technology partners, not policy experts, and we defer to governments and policy makers to grapple with these questions,” said the document, which was signed by Tom Chervinsky, director of global government relations.
Nonetheless, Telus Health said it did convene a clinical advisory board in 2020 that recommended that physician on-boarding be made simpler, the PrescribeIT tool could be embedded in existing software systems rather than be an add-on, and Canada Health Infoway could provide financial incentives for doctors to use it.
Another reason for low uptake was that PrescribeIT began charging pharmacies 20 cents a prescription in 2025, which led some pharmacists to stop using the service.
Ottawa says digital prescription tool cancelled because it failed to replace fax machines
The committee is planning another hearing on PrescribeIT next week, which is set to include more testimony from the chair of Canada Health Infoway and a Telus Health executive.
Canada Health Infoway said in an unsigned statement that Mr. Green’s compensation was decided by the non-profit’s board of directors, which includes representatives of federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The organization’s disclosures also say five other senior executives that year earned salaries between $270,000 and $342,000, with bonuses between $60,750 and $76,950 and taxable benefits between $28,573 and $34,305.
There were 24 vice-presidents and senior managers who earned between $207,284 and $340,762 that year in total compensation. And 89 specialists and managers, who earned between $106,059 and $234,317, along with another 56 staff members with payment ranges between $60,064 and $138,462.
Canada Health Infoway spent nearly $29-million in total remuneration to its 175 employees in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to the organization’s annual report, along with $2.9-million in severance payments.