PC eHealth exaggerations show some nerve

The Progressive Conservatives claimed yesterday that the province has little or nothing to show for the money spent on eHealth.

This was news to me, as I have watched my own family physician change from written notes to electronic records in the last couple of years.

The PCs refer to a news article showing delays with the diabetes registry, no doubt meaning the Toronto Sun eHealth cover story (discussed here last week). But even the Liberal loathing Toronto Sun indicated that progress had been made on several fronts: e.g. an encrypted health email system, widespread use of electronic health records by doctors, and electronic movement of lab records.

Didn't the PCs read the whole article? Health Minister Deb Matthews was quite right to reply that the PCs were making accusations they know to be false.

To boot, the big problem cited by the Sun -- the diabetes registry -- is because the corporation contracted to do the work hasn't delivered on time. Like the PCs wouldn't push even more work out to the corporations.

Speaking of nerve, the Liberals have renewed the contract of the Deputy Minister of Health, Saad Rafi. He comes out of the privatization industry and was supposed to be in charge during the ORNGE privatization fiasco. His punishment? $428,000 (annually).

So much for the government's "compensation freeze" (for the big wigs).

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