Critics say Ontario, the federal government and other provinces, however, are still squandering billions by relying on expensive commercial software to implement electronic health records, rather than free, open-source programs that are proving effective and much less costly.
Read more: Canada: Ontario: Five million patients have digital charts, minister says
Eager to counter two years of bad publicity over a multimillion-dollar spending scandal, Ontario's health minister boasted Tuesday that the province's overhauled electronic-health records program had managed to get five million patients on to digital medical charts.
Critics say Ontario, the federal government and other provinces, however, are still squandering billions by relying on expensive commercial software to implement electronic health records, rather than free, open-source programs that are proving effective and much less costly.
Read more: Canada: Ontario: Minister defends e-health records program
The NCCS website will feature information on the different services of the cancer care continuum and also key support areas provided by both Northern Health and the B.C. Cancer Agency. The sections include prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, patient support, recruitment, patient navigation, telehealth and Aboriginal health.
Read more: Canada: British Columbia: Northern Cancer Control Strategy launches website
It has been just over one year since Auditor General Jim McCarter issued a scathing report on how the province’s electronic health records attempt had loosely spent nearly $1 billion of taxpayer’s funds with little to show for it.
Political critics say Ontario is still “light years” behind the rest of the country when it comes to digitizing patient information.
Read more: Canada: Ontario: 5 million patients get electronic health records
"Generally Canadians are not aware of the project by the government of Canada to adopt the new passport, nor do they know exactly what the passport consists of," a survey released by Passport Canada indicated.
But the idea of the microchip-equipped passport, which offers a choice of validity of five or 10 years, "experienced significant support," the survey said.