Ontario's auditor is probing spending at the delay-plagued provincial agency responsible for developing electronic health records.
eHealth Ontario has spent $146 million on consultants since 2003, despite commitments to reign in billings for outside expertise.
And overall agency spending has ballooned to $839 million while the delivery date for province-wide, electronic patient health records has been pushed back to 2015.
This province continues to lag behind other Canadian jurisdictions that have spent far less money and made more progress on electronic health card systems that have reduced medical errors, prescription overdoses and health-care costs.
Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter confirmed to Sun Media last week that his officials are currently auditing eHealth Ontario, and its predecessor company Smart Systems for Health Agency (SSHA).
The results of the audit will be published in his annual report this December.
Progressive Conservative Leader Bob Runciman had recently called for a value-for-money audit of eHealth Ontario, but McCarter's team has actually been at work there since late fall/early winter.
"We had picked this long before it was raised in the House," McCarter said. "It was on our radar screen ... given the amount of money."
McCarter said eHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer has mentioned publicly that his auditors are doing work on the agency, but he cannot telegraph the specific nature of his investigation.
"We would look at what they're doing now but we would also look at what they've done and we would also look at what they plan on doing," he said.
Asked if he would audit the use of consultants, McCarter said generally he would if they formed a significant portion of a budget.
The SSHA was set up in 2003 by the provincial health ministry to create electronic records for Ontarians, but was dissolved last September after a critical operational review highlighted poor investments and a lack of strategic direction.
eHealth Ontario was formed shortly afterward to carry on the work with a new CEO and more structured plans and goals.
Sun Media has previously reported that eHealth Ontario and the SSHA spent $67.2 million on consultants over the past two years alone, despite directly employing 166 people last year whose annual salary topped $100,000.
Since the fiscal year 2003-04, the cost of consultants has represented an average of just over 17% of the agency's budget.
Kramer, who took over as CEO in November, has told Sun Media that the agency is trying to lessen its reliance on consultants.
"We're moving more and more to a staffed model, but we recognize that we are competing with the private sector, we're competing with (U.S. President Barack) Obama's $50-billion electronic health record plan in the U.S., and we need to carefully and thoughtfully bring in those experts where we know they can have the most effect on modernizing our health-care system," Kramer said.
Health Minister David Caplan said that more work at eHealth Ontario will be done by staffers in the future, and he expects the organization to produce results for the money it's getting.
According to the SSHA's 2004-05 annual report, the agency was attempting even then to move from consultants to employees.
"Ontario's goal of connecting 150,000 health-care providers from over 24,000 sites is one that we hope to see accomplished in the coming years," the report says.
"For SSHA, fiscal 2004-05 was a period of intense corporate change and operational policy development, adapting to the new initiatives and gearing up for large-volume deployment of products and services.
"It was also a time of aggressive staff hiring. Continuing a shift from a consultant-based to an employee-based staffing model, the agency's pool of permanent staff more than doubled."
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ENOUGH SPENT ON EHEALTH
Tax dollars spent trying to develop Ontario eHealth records:
- 2003-04: $94 million in total, $25 million on consultants.
- 2004-05: $98 million in total, $17 million on consultants.
- 2005-06: $123 million in total, $18 million on consultants.
- 2006-07: $133 million in total, $19 million on consultants.
- 2007-08: $180 million in total, $33 million on consultants.
- 2008-09: $211 million in total, $34 million on consultants.
- Over the last six years: $839 million in total, $146 million on consultants
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Antonella Artuso
Quelle/Source: Toronto Sun, 24.05.2009
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