eHealth Ontario moves to restore public's trust
"In the agency's eagerness to demonstrate results quickly, the organization fell short in meeting its obligations," said
While the Auditor General's report highlights past practices of eHealth Ontario, it also acknowledges some of the very important steps that the agency has taken to strengthen governance and accountability, including:
- Implementing rigourous procurement rules;
- Strengthening oversight;
- Ensuring appropriate controls are in place;
- Enhancing business planning; and
- Ensuring mechanisms are in place to better assess deliverables
"I have been impressed by the commitment and dedication demonstrated by the board and staff of eHealth Ontario to get the house in order," said
The attached backgrounder contains additional information on eHealth Ontario, the changes that have been made in recent months and the agency's accomplishments. It also contains information on network usage.
BACKGROUNDER
About eHealth Ontario
- eHealth Ontario was created on September 29, 2008 as a result of a
merger between Smart Systems for Health Agency and the Ministry of
Health and Long-Term Care's e-Health Program.
- The agency's mandate is to play the leading role in harnessing
technology and innovation to improve patient care, safety, and access
in support of the government's ehealth agenda.
- The provincial government has committed approximately $2 billion over
the next three years to ehealth initiatives.
- eHealth Ontario has eight office locations across the GTA.
- The agency currently has a total workforce of 944 positions of which
607 are full-time employees.
- As of September 30, 2009 eHealth Ontario had 286 consultants (234 of
which were from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care's e-Health
program) In the next two months the agency will bring the total
consultant base down to 234 consultants, all of which will have been
competitively tendered. By the end of the fiscal year, March 31, 2010
the total consultant number will be 160.
- Since June 1, 2009, 128 underutilized circuits have been closed on the
network, realizing an annual savings of about $770,000.
BACKGROUNDER
Changes made at eHealth Ontario since June 2009
- Notice was issued to all eHealth Ontario staff and vendors regarding
the need to eliminate unnecessary expenditures;
- Finance division began applying an additional level of scrutiny to all
payments and strengthened budgeting processes and financial management
practices;
- In addition to following the government's new procurement directive,
eHealth Ontario has enhanced its procurement function;
- Planned or pending procurements are scrutinized to ensure they are in
compliance with procurement rules before they are executed;
- Board approved new procurement directive as well as a new delegation
of authority policy;
- The agency is in compliance with the Government of Ontario's "Travel,
Expenses & Hospitality Directive"; and
- All staff will be required to attend training and information sessions
related to the new policies.
BACKGROUNDER
Accomplishments
- Developed and published the province's first ehealth strategy (2009 -
2012) with extensive input from stakeholders, delivery partners and
staff;
- Issued a request for qualifications to identify companies that are
qualified to bid on the contract to develop the diabetes registry;
- Enabled the integration of Ontario's Diagnostic Imaging and Picture
Archiving Communication Systems (DI/PACS) which established common
repositories for sharing information across the healthcare system;
- Used innovative electronic medication prescribing to prevent adverse
drug interactions in Sault Ste. Marie and the Georgian Bay area;
- Enabled neurosurgeons to remotely review head trauma images to make
critical decisions about emergency patients - saving lives, lessening
family distress and avoiding costly transfers;
- By mining data, eHealth Ontario has identified the diabetes care gap;
and
- Significant progress has been made towards the development of
province-wide client and provider registry identity systems that will
serve as a key part of ensuring security of the ehealth system.
BACKGROUNDER
Network - Value for money
There has been criticism that money has been spent on ehealth initiatives,
such as network infrastructure, with nothing to show for it. This backgrounder
illustrates the health care systems that have been using our network,
originally created by SSHA, since 2003.
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Year Initiative Usage details
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2003 Integrated Public Health Accessed by 36 Public Health Units
Information System (iPHIS) and MOHLTC
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2004 Ontario Public Health Portal Accessed by Public Health workers
province-wide
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2005 Drug Profile Viewer (DPV) 200+ Ontario hospitals with over
6500 registered users
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2006 Important Health Notice Electronic distribution of
Publication Facility important health information
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2006 Ontario Telemedicine Network 345 sites, 22,000 clinical
encounters
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2006 LHIN shared services 14 LHINS (electronic mail service,
organization financial application hosting)
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2006 Electronic Children's Health 100 hospitals, six tertiary care
Network (eCHN) centres, 14 CCACs and 20 child
treatment centres
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2006 Multi site EMR system access Physicians share EMR info and
connect remotely
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2006 OntarioMD Portal Used by registered physicians
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2006 Ontario Wait Times Information 800+ surgeons on the eHealth
System and Enterprise Master Ontario network
Patient Index
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2007 Ontario Case Costing Initiative Used 45+ hospitals across the
province
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2007 Electronic Medical Record Physicians access EMRs on
Application Service Provider Application Service Provider
service
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2007 MOHLTC Health Network 3100+ Ontario pharmacies 6,000+
System (HNS) claims submitted daily
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2008 MOHLTC eReferral Used by two hospitals and six
CCACs
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2008 Resource Matching & eReferral Provincial rollout commencing
(RM&R)
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2008 Diagnostic Imaging Archival and 99 hospital sites across four
Retrieval LHINs
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2008 Community Care Access Centre 42 CCAC & LT Care facilities
access three shared apps
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2008 Oral Health Information Accessed by 500+ program dental
Support System professionals
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2008 Hospital diagnostic imaging 39 hospital sites across three
repository service (HDIRS) LHINs
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2008 Integrated birth registration Ontario hospital user
registration / authentication
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2008 Ontario Lab Information System In seven hospitals and large
community labs. Contains greater
than 50 per cent of Ontario's lab
test results
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2009 Patient Results Online Central Pilot in Central LHIN
LHIN
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2009 Enterprise Neurological Image 56 of 93 sites (60 per cent)
Transfer System (ENITS) rolled out
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For further information: Heather Brown, Communications Advisor, eHealth Ontario, (416) 586-4238, [email protected]
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