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EmailThe state of Canadian health care was in focus for 2023 with the Government of Canada announcing a groundbreaking investment of $198.6 billion over 10 years to improve health care services for Canadians. At the heart of this investment were health priorities that put Canadians at the center of discussion.
Ensuring access to high-quality family health services, especially in rural and remote areas, fortifying a resilient health workforce, providing timely and equitable mental health and substance use services, and enabling individuals to access health information seamlessly were topics of conversation.
As we reflect on the past year, we are deeply encouraged by the impactful contributions that both we and our partners have made in helping to advance these priorities.
PrescribeIT by the Numbers
Momentum continues as the health care community embraces the value that PrescribeIT® offers to patients, pharmacies, prescribers and the health care system.
16,185
Prescribers enrolled
7,953
Pharmacies enrolled
4,282
Clinics enrolled
79.8M
Transactions
Impact to Canadians
Currently, an estimated 5.5 million Canadians experience enhanced medication safety and privacy through PrescribeIT®. As this number continues to rise, the service's capacity to avoid overall health care system costs also expands.
A broad-scale adoption of PrescribeIT® has the potential to avoid $520M by reducing prescription misuse, improving medication adherence, and eliminating medication errors that can result in physician emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
Jurisdictions and New Partners
Significant progress has been made in two provinces. As part of Prince Edward Island’s EMR program, the phase one rollout of PrescribeIT® in clinics and pharmacies was an overwhelming success achieving an 84% adoption rate in the province with the launch of PrescribeIT® functionality in TELUS’s Collaborative Health Record EMR. At the same time, Newfoundland resumed its expansion efforts, onboarding additional pharmacies and clinics in the province.
Community Pharmacy
Community pharmacies provide the network needed to ensure all communities, whether urban, rural, or remote, have access to essential medications and services. In 2023, more than 863 community pharmacies were onboarded with PrescribeIT®. In January Metro Ontario Pharmacies announced the launch of PrescribeIT® in their Metro and Food Basics pharmacies. In May, Jean Coutu and Brunet announced that they would make the service available to more than 560 of its pharmacies in Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. Finally, Familiprix banner pharmacies engaged in a limited production release of PrescribeIT® in New Brunswick and is actively planning to expand to other locations.
Costco extended its PrescribeIT® footprint deploying additional stores in Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, while Walmart continued its nationwide expansion onboarding stores in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Prince Edward Island.
Hospitals
Connected care emphasizes the seamless flow of a patient's medication history between care providers and settings – be it in the community or hospital. And what a year it has been for hospitals. In May, significant progress was made when The Ottawa Hospital became the first in Canada to launch PrescribeIT® to its 2,500 clinicians. Later that same month Meditech announced its plans to align PrescribeIT® with its Expanse HIS at Humber River Hospital in Toronto.
Throughout the year PrescribeIT® actively collaborated with all four of the largest HIS vendors in Canada and engaged more than 100 hospitals in various phases of development. Hospitals are an integral part of the PrescribeIT® strategy bringing us one step closer to a fully connected health care ecosystem.
“Physicians want the benefits of e-prescribing. By eliminating the need for faxes and phone calls to pharmacists, they will see significant time savings.”
— Dr. Zaki Ahmed, Chief of Staff, Humber River Hospital
PrescribeIT® Showcase
Continuing the success of previous years, Infoway continued to raise awareness of PrescribeIT® with federal and provincial government officials through a series of Community Showcase events. In May, federal MP Francesco Sorbara attended a showcase at Weston Downs Pharmacy in the Vaughan-Woodbridge riding and in October 2023, MPP Peter Bethlenfalvy, the Ontario Minister of Finance attended a showcase at the Rexall pharmacy in Pickering-Uxbridge. These showcases gave legislators a firsthand look at the practical advantages of interoperability while showcasing PrescribeIT’s practical benefits to patients, pharmacies, and physicians.
Interoperability Industry Collaborative
Throughout its history, Infoway has fostered robust collaborations with major healthcare IT vendors in Canada. This year a key turning point was reached as Infoway leveraged its relationships to launch the inaugural Interoperability Industry collaborative meeting. This forum delved into critical topics, including the impact of pan-Canadian interoperability on the industry, strategies for fostering interoperability adoption, and Infoway’s role within the broader roadmap and legislation. PrescribeIT®, an early success story of interoperability, played a key role in co-hosting these discussions. The collaborative engaged in meaningful discussions collectively setting goals to drive the adoption of interoperability standards to advance connected care.
Research
In 2023, the completion of the System and Use Survey revealed overwhelmingly positive feedback for PrescribeIT®. Exploring over 30 metrics on topics including prescriber and pharmacy use, experiences and perceived value, the survey indicated strong support for e-prescribing, with 80 per cent of prescribers and 70 per cent of pharmacists favoring it for efficiency and productivity. Additionally, more than 65 per cent of prescribers and pharmacists prefer e-prescribing for patient care, while over 75 per cent acknowledge it as the superior choice for handling controlled substances.
First Nations
The First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba (FNHSSM) and Mustimuhw Community EMR announced the launch of PrescribeIT® at Sagkeeng Health Centre in Manitoba. This partnership ensured progress toward equitable access to high-quality, culturally appropriate health services for rural, remote, and underserved communities.
“PrescribeIT® ….aligns with our vision of a future where every First Nations individual receives the quality care they deserve.”
— Pamela Schacht, NP, Sagkeeng Health Centre
Product and Service
Accessible and sustainable digital health care requires solid operations and with its robust and reliable architecture, PrescribeIT® experienced zero unplanned outages and achieved 100 per cent service availability over the last 12 months. We also implemented improvements to the conformance process including the introduction of an enhanced conformance tracking tool and a partner portal. Each of these processes has helped to significantly reduce development timelines while also supporting Agile development.
Building further on our philosophy of continuous improvement, PrescribeIT® implemented workflow enhancements to improve end-user experience. And, in support of jurisdictional priorities, PrescribeIT® released v5.3 of its specifications which introduced the final suite of Quebec-specific functionality, including discontinuing prescriptions, in January 2023.
Looking forward
There was much to celebrate over the previous twelve months and 2024 is shaping up to be another great year. We look forward to expanding hospital deployments, growing the service in Quebec and working closely with the interoperability collaborative group to advance safe, efficient and secure e-prescribing for all Canadians.
“…the introduction of PrescribeIT® [is one of the] important ways Digital Health can ultimately improve the health and well-being of our community members.”
— Chief Sheldon Kent, Chairperson of the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba Board of Directors