healthy4u: Canada

Canada: Province-wide electronic medical record computer system 'glitch' causing patients to be turned away from care

This story describes a very bad scenario for sick Canadians.  I offer just a few pithy comments, as not much more than that is needed: <blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2014/06/10/system-failure-has-docs-patients-upset/">http://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2014/06/10/system-failure-has-docs-patients-upset/</a></blockquote><blockquote>System failure has docs, patients upset By Gillian Slade on June 10, 2014 Many patients were turned away from their doctor’s office Monday because a province-wide electronic medical record computer system had collapsed.</blockquote> Province-wide.  Stunning.  A very big argument against centralization of EHR resources. <blockquote class="tr_bq">“This is the third straight week of issues with the TELUS Wolf system,” said Dr. Donovan Nunweiler at Southlands Medical Clinic. “We feel we were encouraged by government to switch to Wolf and now it’s not working.”</blockquote> I wonder when someone in the Canadian government is  going to issue that now-famous slogan "but patient safety has not been compromised"... <blockquote class="tr_bq">A year ago 202 physician clinics across Alberta using TELUS Wolf were unable to access patient records for most of the day.</blockquote> More than 200 physician clinics are blind, deaf and dumb?  Wonder what happens to acute patients on days like that. <blockquote class="tr_bq">On Monday patients arrived only to be told the electronic patient files were not accessible making it impossible to see test results, past medical history and medications.</blockquote> Paper never goes on strike.  Perhaps elimination of paper completely is not such a good idea? <blockquote class="tr_bq">“This is affecting me big time and affecting my income,” said Ken Hoeppner, a patient at HealthWORX Medical clinic, who had waited 15 days for his appointment. “Every time government touches something they wreck it. Our health care used to be good here before Alberta Health Services took over.”</blockquote> No comment. <blockquote class="tr_bq">At HealthWORX, office manager Carel Liebenberg said the office was doing what it could to reschedule people. One patient had driven three hours to be there for his appointment early Monday.</blockquote> It's just a "glitch", sir or madam.  Stop complaining. (<a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/glitch">http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/glitch</a>) At Health Matters Medical Clinic, staff confirmed they too were dealing with no access to patients’ records on TELUS’s Wolf system. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Originally to encourage physicians to move to electronic medical records, the government gave a monetary incentive. Alberta Health selected TELUS Health Solutions Wolf EMR after a request for proposals in 2008. There was a requirement for the service to be available 99.9 per cent of the time between 6 a.m. and midnight with financial penalties for failure to do so. “There is no longer any government support,” said Nunweiler. “We (Southlands Medical Clinic) pay $2,000 a month for this. Who is going to hold TELUS accountable now? The government has abandoned us. Cost and issues switching patient data, when systems are not compatible, prevents us from going somewhere else.”</blockquote> Seems to be this TELUS:  <a href="https://www.telushealth.com/health-solutions/electronic-health-records-%28ehr%29">https://www.telushealth.com/health-solutions/electronic-health-records-%28ehr%29</a>.  Sounds like a monopoly to me. On that page: <blockquote class="tr_bq"><h4>TELUS Electronic Health Records (EHR) provides a better way to share, access and consolidate information.</h4>Without quick, secure access to complete and reliable information, healthcare provision can be inefficient, preventing patients from receiving the best care possible.</blockquote> How ironic. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Liebenberg reached TELUS at 9 a.m. Monday. “They said they had just become aware of the issue and that their data technicians were in a meeting discussing the problem,” said Liebenberg. “Last week the system was extremely slow, taking 15 minutes for a physician to simply renew a prescription.”</blockquote> Data technicians were in a meeting?  Sounds like a fantastic way to respond to a Province-wide medical emergency. <blockquote class="tr_bq"> Nunweiler said he’d made notes on paper as he struggled to manage the snail’s pace of the system last week. Monday he would be adding to those notes and envisaged several hours at night entering the data to make it current.</blockquote> Paper never goes on strike. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Liebenberg said the need to re-schedule appointments reflects badly on the clinic and some patients don’t understand it’s a system failure beyond the clinic’s.</blockquote> That's just great for patient-physician relations. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Dr. Franz Yonker said HealthWORX had been using JonokeMed but the government endorsed TELUS Wolf and physicians were encouraged to switch. “I think this is really bad for a government-backed system,” said Yonker.</blockquote> "Wolf" is a somewhat humorous name considering these problems.  As in, a predatory EHR ... one wonders just how much better the others are. <blockquote class="tr_bq">Becky Nelson arrived for her appointment to refill prescriptions and was concerned about how long it would take to get another appointment. “The government needs to get this on track. We are suffering the consequences,” said Nelson.</blockquote> I wonder if any patients will suffer the ultimate consequence.  (Hint to Canadians:  never become too dependent on the Government.  Stuff like this happens.) <blockquote class="tr_bq">Donna Schneider brought her mother Vernie Ferguson in for results of some tests. Ferguson said she was not at all well. “There is nowhere else to go and get my test results,” said Ferguson.</blockquote> Held medical hostage to bad health IT.  How horrible. <blockquote class="tr_bq">The News requested an interview with TELUS but there was no response on Monday afternoon. The News requested information from Alberta Health but that was not available on Monday. </blockquote> Perhaps they're busy, in meetings discussing how to fix the problem. -- SS

Canada: Province-wide electronic medical record computer system 'glitch' causing patients to be turned away from care

This story describes a very bad scenario for sick Canadians. I offer just a few pithy comments, as not much more than that is needed: http:...

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Ontario must rethink health care ... including costs of health IT

Hat tip to a commenter for the link below to a Toronto newspaper opinion piece on Canadian healthcare rationing and the costs of health IT. The line: <div></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div>"While billion-dollar scandals like eHealth make these stories all the more frustrating for Ontarians, because of the appalling waste of scarce health-care dollars, the truth is governments across Canada, not just the Dalton McGuinty government in Ontario, are struggling with the same issues" </div></blockquote><div></div><div> could have been written by me.  </div><div></div><div> (In fact, I've written exactly such lines about the "National Programme for IT in the HHS" a/k/a the HITECH Act, regarding the waste of precious healthcare resources such as at my Jan. 2010 post "<a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2010/01/electronic-medical-records-and-going.html" target="_blank">Electronic Medical Records and Going For Broke: Jackson Health System's Financial Future Appears Grim</a>".) This from the Toronto Sun:  <blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://m.torontosun.com/2012/09/28/ontario-must-rethink-health-care" target="_blank">Ontario must rethink health care</a> Toronto Sun Saturday, September 29, 2012, 6:20 PM The simple truth is Ontario’s health care system is running out of our money to pay for our health care. That’s why we keep hearing about cases of patients being denied necessary surgery — particularly when it has to be done in the U.S. — and life-prolonging medications. In the Sun’s news section today, Queen’s Park columnist Christina Blizzard tells the story of Erika Crawford, 17, whose family plans to go ahead with life-saving surgery in the U.S. to prevent her death from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, even though OHIP has callously refused to fund the expensive procedure. Recently, Blizzard wrote about the plight of three-year-old Liam Reid, whose parents went ahead with eye-saving treatment available only in Detroit, with no guarantee OHIP will pay for that. Over the summer, Blizzard wrote about 67-year-old Percy Bedard, denied OHIP funding for a life-prolonging drug for his prostate cancer because the health ministry doesn’t believe it’s cost effective. The truth is that as time goes on, there are going to be more and more stories like this. While billion-dollar scandals like eHealth make these stories all the more frustrating for Ontarians, because of the appalling waste of scarce health-care dollars, the truth is governments across Canada, not just the Dalton McGuinty government in Ontario, are struggling with the same issues. </blockquote></div><div dir="ltr"> I presume they're referring to the scandal such as I wrote of in May 2009 at my post "<a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/05/canadian-health-it-ripoff-is-anyone-in.html" target="_blank">Canadian Health IT Ripoff ... Is Anyone in the U.S. Paying Attention?</a>" (Addendum Oct. 1, 2012:  per the commenter, also see this July 2012 Toronto Sun story:  <a href="http://m.torontosun.com/2012/07/14/ehealth-needs-surgery" target="_blank">eHealth Needs Surgery</a> and this quote:  "Auditor General Jim McCarter, in his clinical dissection of Ontario electronic health records woe in 2009, said $1 billion had been spent by over 10 years by two different governments, without getting full value for those dollars. He’s since been more specific about the numbers, saying “hundreds of millions of dollars” were likely wasted.") From my aforementioned Jan. 2010 post: <blockquote class="tr_bq">... I have written on numerous occasions that health IT in its present form, often poorly designed and implemented under current IT leadership structures, is often a waste of precious healthcare resources. The resources might be better spent on essentials such as patient care for the poor or improved human staffing, until this experimental technology is perfected.</blockquote>   Add "and for the not so poor" to that list.  <blockquote class="tr_bq">Since there isn’t enough money to give everyone the care they need, politicians and health bureaucrats routinely deny medically necessary services and treatments to save money. This often means choosing between who will live and who will die, and who will suffer and who will lead a normal life. To be sure, this review process has always been in place, particularly for out-of-province treatments and for funding new medications, since no publicly funded health care system can possibly provide every service to everyone. But as the health care budget creeps towards eating up half of all spending in Ontario, these decisions are only going to become more frequent, and harder.</blockquote>   But in the U.S. let's go merrily ahead and spend <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2012/09/wsj-koppel-and-soumerai-major-glitch.html" target="_blank">a trillion dollars for health IT</a>, even if it's bad health it (BHIT), which there currently is no reason for manufacturers to stop producing (e.g., complete lack of regulation).  No problem, right? -- SS   </div>

Ontario must rethink health care ... including costs of health IT

Hat tip to a commenter for the link below to a Toronto newspaper opinion piece on Canadian healthcare rationing and the costs of health IT. ...

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