Health

This House of Commons health committee meeting studied the PrescribeIT program and its termination. Appearing were Peter Vaughan, board chair of Canada Health Infoway; Mohamed El-Demerdash, president of Telus Health; and Tania Ensor, strategic advisor at Canada Health Infoway.

Peter Vaughan stated that Canada Health Infoway fulfilled its mandate by building the national technical infrastructure for e-prescribing, with 95% of pharmacies and EMR vendors integrated. He explained that the board decided in November 2025 to move to an open standards model after no province or territory committed to cost-sharing and federal funding was not renewed. Vaughan attributed low prescriber adoption—under 5% of prescriptions—to the lack of provincial mandates or incentives, noting this mirrors international experience, and he recommended that provinces use policy levers to drive uptake. He confirmed that former CEO Michael Green was dismissed on April 29, 2026, due to a need for different leadership, and that severance is under discussion, while defending Green’s past performance bonuses as tied to achieved corporate objectives.

Mohamed El-Demerdash described Telus Health’s role as building and operating a secure national e-prescribing “highway” with 99.9% uptime, at an average cost of $10.9 million per year. He noted that Telus brought 85% of the underlying technology, saving government expense, but that adoption was low because Telus did not control policy levers like mandates or clinician onboarding. El-Demerdash said Telus raised concerns about low usage through a clinical advisory board in 2021, recommending easier workflows and national standards, and that all 59 change orders from Infoway were implemented. He disagreed with the characterization of the program as a failure, emphasizing its technical success.

Tania Ensor clarified that Infoway set standards, oversaw Telus’s work, and engaged provinces to grow adoption, while Telus also had a role as a vendor to encourage use among its customers. She explained that Quebec’s delayed participation was due to its unique system needs and a reorganization with Santé Québec. Ensor stated that the sustainability target was 75% of all prescriptions, which was not reached, and that Infoway is now offering its 15% intellectual property share and custom backup technology to provinces for future e-prescribing.

The committee debated a motion to invite the Minister of Health and officials from Health Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat to testify on PrescribeIT. After amendments, the motion was adopted to invite them at the earliest opportunity, without a specific timeline, following a vote to adjourn debate.