IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

"All privacy legislation in Canada goes back to fundamental principles. Health care is special in the sense of the directness of privacy concerns," says Power, recently appointed vice-president for privacy and security at the Smart Systems for Health Agency.

Younker outlines his security concerns in his 2010 report made public earlier this week. That report also highlighted serious concerns about delays in implementing the program and significant cost overruns.

The program wasn’t supposed to cost taxpayers a dime. But costs have ballooned to more than $15 million for taxpayers.

Health Minister Carolyn Bertram says she’s legally bound by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPP) to keep the information secret.

But Bertram said if she’s asked to produce the documents in the P.E.I. legislature she will obey that request.

Some of P.E.I.'s spending on moving medical records from paper to computers did not go through a competitive bid process, a review by the auditor general shows.

The Electronic Health Records Initiative was a major focus of Auditor General Colin Younker's annual report, released Wednesday.

“Today we are launching our new searchable databases that will allow all Islanders electronic access to decisions which will affect their communities,” said Minister Bertram. “From now on, all appealable planning decisions from both the provincial and municipal orders, will be posted on our new database.”

A large section of the 160-page report examined the Electronic Health Records Initiative, a project to transfer health records from paper to computers, and allow health professionals anywhere in the country to pull up your personal health records.

"Electronic medical records are modernizing the way health care in British Columbia is being delivered," said Abbott. "We are working to make advances in technology benefit patients and help physicians - such as the doctors in Summerland - ensure that their patients are as healthy as possible."

Provincial Health Minister Theresa Oswald today announced a $6,000,000 pilot project called 'CareLink', that will enable patients making after-hours/non-urgent phone calls to doctors' offices and clinics to automatically connect with a Health Links provincial call centre.

The province has announced two new grant programs intended to help rural communities grow and adapt to change.

The Community Broadband Infrastructure Pilot Program and the Rural Community Adaptation Grant Program were launched last month with funding from Alberta’s $104-million share of the federal government’s Community Development Trust.

Mayor Larry O'Brien's task force on e-government has released its report with eight recommendations, including ensuring technology alternatives are considered to offset any direct or indirect increase in staffing levels when council directs staff to take action on a specific item.

"It's about using technology to improve services to people," said Henri-Francois Gautrin, parliamentary assistant to Liberal Premier Jean Charest. Gautrin said e-government will also help save money, estimating the province's Revenue Department will save $18 million a year because it's cheaper to process income tax reports online.

But Henri-Francois Gautrin, parliamentary assistant to Charest, said the traditional ways of reaching the government, such as telephone calls and face-to-face meetings, won't be eliminated.

Saying "what's up, doc?" to a physician on the phone instead of sitting around for hours in a hospital waiting room could save Quebec's beleaguered public health care system a bundle, a Montreal economic think tank says.

In a report being released today, the Montreal Economic Institute says several studies -including one at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal -show telemedicine can significantly reduce costs to taxpayers, increase health care service efficiency and boost patients' well-being because they spend less time travelling to and from clinics and hospitals and waiting around to see a nurse or a doctor.

"Quebec has lost ground in telehealth," stated Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy, a lecturer at HEC Montréal and senior economist at the MEI. "Initiatives taken up to now seem to have favoured collaboration between professionals rather than the provision of services to patients."

A team from Montreal's McGill University has pioneered a medical first by administering anesthesia via remote teleconferencing for surgery that was taking place in Pisa, Italy.

On Aug. 30, Dr. Thomas Hemmerling and his team from McGill's anesthesia department treated patients undergoing thyroid gland surgery in Italy, putting them to sleep remotely from a control room in Montreal.

"It cannot be fast-food medicine," said Yves Robert, secretary of the professional order representing about 20,000 physicians. "Oneminute consultations over the Internet would simply become a way to make more cash. A patient has to know that it's not always easy to practise medicine."

"The choices made in this expenditure budget are only a first step to stabilize spending. We will have to go even farther to clear some budget room that will allow us to fulfill the commitments that we were elected to deliver on." This was the message Ms. Monique Jérôme-Forget, Chair of the Conseil du trésor, Minister responsible for Government Administration and Minister responsible for the Montréal Region, gave Quebecers upon tabling of the 2003-2004 Expenditure Budget.