Cancelled Health Canada Program Cost $48 Million More Than Previously Disclosed

A soon-to-be cancelled federal IT program for doctors cost nearly $50 million more to develop and operate than was initially reported, MPs on the House of Commons health committee were told on April 21.

The program, PrescribeIT, was meant to make it easier for doctors to renew prescriptions by instantly sending drug prescriptions to pharmacies. The program is set to be shut down at the end of May 2026 due to low adoption rates.

Under questioning from Conservative MP Dan Mazier, a Health Canada official said that the total amount of money allocated to the program was $298 million. Canada Health Infoway had previously reported that PrescribeIT’s annual costs amounted to $35 million in recent years, adding up to over $250 million since 2017.

“We would say that PrescribeIT delivered a service over those years. It did deliver millions of prescriptions, as we noted. So it was value to taxpayers,” said Health Canada Senior Assistant Deputy Minister Jocelyne Voisin.

Health department spokesperson Emmanuelle Ducharme previously told The Epoch Times that the use of PrescribeIT had been “below anticipated levels,” with less than 5 percent of prescriptions now being filled through the program. She said with low uptake among health care providers and a lack of a cost-sharing model between the federal government and the provinces and territories, it was decided to “transition to national e-prescribing standards.”

Around $98 million in funding went to Telus Health, a subsidiary of Telus Corporation, which was the main developer of the program. Michael Green, president and CEO of Canada Health Infoway, could not give the committee an answer on what the rest of the $250 million was spent on, but said he could give information to MPs at a later time.

Green said that 95 percent of pharmacies had been connected to PrescribeIT. When asked by Mazier why PrescribeIT was terminated, he responded, “We decided that a more effective approach, going forward, was going to be looking at an open standards approach which would suit the diversity of the different health systems across the country.”

Telus Health Vice President of Provider Solutions Ratcho Batchvarov told the committee that after Canada Health Infoway shuts down PrescribeIT in May, the company may relaunch the program. Telus Health has 85 percent of the intellectual property of PrescribeIT, and Batchvarov said 50 Telus employees work on the program.

The MPs on the health committee agreed unanimously to summon Green, the chairperson of Canada Health Infoway, and a representative from Telus Health for another two hours of testimony by May 6.