Quebec health records going digital

Quebec’s health department plans to spend $547 million to digitize provincial medical records by 2011.

A doctor will be able to log on to patients’ records anywhere in Quebec when the digitalization is finished. Each file on record will have information identifying the patient and listing prescriptions, test results and names of other health professionals who have treated the patient.

Patients will be asked to give their consent to participate – and will have a personal password which must also be typed in to access the system.

The project will receive $303 million in federal funds and $244 million from Quebec, making this the largest healthcare information technology modernization effort ever undertaken in Canada.

In a press conference earlier this month, health minister Philippe Couillard said “it would be beneficial to have the whole medical record together to avoid prescribing conflicting medications, which can result in hospitalization.”

Couillard said new hospitals will “probably be all paperless.”

Building the digital health network will result in an estimated $375 million in contracts for Quebec companies.