Plan for e-health records coming: Bertram

The P.E.I. government is already working on some key recommendations from Wednesday's auditor general's report, says Health Minister Carolyn Bertram.

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.

When the plan was announced in 2005 it wasn't supposed to cost Island taxpayers a penny all of the money was to come from Ottawa and hospital foundations but Auditor General Colin Younker said as of the end of March 2009 it had cost them $15.6 million. Over the next five years another $6 million is budgeted. The system still isn't finished.

"Some of it's operational on P.E.I., and some needs integration and upgrades in order to be able to integrate with other systems," Younker told reporters in a briefing Wednesday.

The problem was no proper planning, said Younker, and there is still no plan to finish the project. Health Minister Carolyn Bertram said that won't be the case much longer.

"We are working on a strategic plan, and that plan should be ready by the end of this month to provide to Islanders as a public document to show where we're going with this," said Bertram.

A national system

The Electronic Health Records Initiative has its roots back in 2000, when health ministers from across the country got together to announce it as a national initiative. A federal agency was established to help fund it. The systems, while built individually, were all meant to communicate with each other.

Younker cited in particular two reorganizations within government that led to management problems for the project. In 2005 regional health authorities were shut down, and their authority centralized in the Health Department. This led to a significant restructuring of senior management.

The next year, the IT section of the Health Department was closed in favour of a centralized government IT operation.

Bertram said most of the problems Younker identifies in his report occurred under the former Progressive Conservative regime.

"A lot of this goes back to the previous administration," she said.

"I don't want to play the blame game but certainly those were things that were supposed to be in place back in 2005."

Attemptsto reach former Tory health minister Chester Gillan were unsuccessful.

Colin Younker confirms Bertram is right, to a degree. Things have improved under the Liberals, but monitoring and reporting of project costs have continued to be a problem.