Only 17 Percent Of Canadians' Health Records Digitized

June 23, 2009 12:02 p.m. EST

Ottawa, Ontario (AHN) - After eight years and spending $1.576 billion, only 17 percent of the health records of Canadians have been digitized, according to the annual report of Canada Health Infoway released Monday.

The figure is short of the original 50 percent target to convert paper medical records into electronic form. The shift to digital format aims to cut errors, improve patient care tracking and save more lives.

Infoway director of communications Dan Strasbourg, however, expressed confidence the 50 percent target by end of 2010 is still possible to achieve. Strasbourg explained, quoted by Globe and Mail, "The provinces and territories are making solid progress and are currently on track to meet their objective of having the core components of the electronic health record in place for 50 percent of Canadians by the end of 2010."

He said in the next 18 months the systems will be in place for medics to be able to use the electronic files.

The report said Infoway went beyond its approval target with new project approvals worth $136.5 million. At the end of March 2009, total projects reached 283, up from 254 ventures the previous fiscal year.

Infoway board chairman H. Arnold Steinberg and president and chief executive officer Richard Alvarez, in a message in the annual report, said the electronic health records project would create thousands of direct knowledge-based information technology jobs in Canada and a larger return on investments placed at $6 billion to $7 billion yearly.

Steinberg and Alvarez wrote, "Clearly, spending on health IT infrastructure offers the prospect of not only economic stimulus but also lower health system costs at a time when the country needs to be particularly prudent with its investments and stem escalating health care costs, now pegged at around $170 billion annually."

The top two Infoways officials pointed out that by the end of 2008 it has placed in Canada core systems which counts registries and systems that support diagnostic imaging, drug information, laboratory information, telehealth services, public health surveys, innovation and adoption and interoperable electronic health records.