IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

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.

The idea was to support a safer, more efficient healthcare system, one that would reduce wait times, increase patient participation in health care, better manage chronic diseases, and improve access to care in remote and rural communities. The not-for-profit, federally funded organization jointly invests with every province and territory to accelerate the development and adoption of electronic health record projects in Canada.

Both governments today signed a Framework Agreement worth more than $6.2 billion under Building Canada.

Nevertheless, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan has decided doctors who counsel or diagnose Saskatchewan patients through video, telephone or the Internet are technically practising medicine in the province -- and should be licensed here.

On the weekend, the college's council passed a bylaw spelling out new rules governing the practice of so-called telemedicine in Saskatchewan, college lawyer and associate registrar Bryan Salte said.

The Treasury Board Crown corporation will now be known as eHealth Saskatchewan and be overseen by a six-member board made up of representatives from organizations including the Saskatchewan Medical Association, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, health regions, the business community and the province.

The ultimate goal is a "one patient, one record" electronic health record system.

"During 2009 the ministry spent over $20 million buying IT services from vendors. We audited the ministry's processes to buy IT services and our findings were not encouraging," acting auditor Brian Atkinson said this week, as he released a report detailing the findings of recent audits of several government agencies.

The practice, called telemedicine, is currently unregulated in Saskatchewan despite a national recommendation nine years ago that provinces adopt consistent rules and regulations.