Infoway pulls the plug on PrescribeIT

OTTAWA – Canada Well being Infoway introduced that PrescribeIT, its program for e-prescribing amongst physicians and pharmacists, shall be shut down as of Could 29. It was established to help safer, extra environment friendly prescribing, nevertheless it didn’t obtain the size or a profitable funding components required for long-term sustainability.

In accordance with a report within the Globe and Mail, the PrescribeIT program price greater than $250 million since its inception in 2017, and is being shuttered as a result of this system failed to switch fax machines and provinces and territories wouldn’t share the price of operating it.

Infoway stated this system would get replaced by a “nationwide e-prescribing normal” that it hoped different health-technology corporations would undertake.

“Canada Well being Infoway will proceed to take care of the usual to help nationwide consistency and allow provinces, territories, and distributors to undertake and apply it in ways in which align with their respective priorities and timelines, in line with nationwide approaches to safe well being data change,” chief govt officer Michael Inexperienced (pictured) stated in a press release.

Though 1000’s of pharmacies and physician’s places of work throughout the nation had signed up with PrescribeIT, few had been utilizing it. The federal government estimated that fewer than 5 p.c of prescriptions had been despatched via PrescribeIT. Most are nonetheless despatched by fax or on paper.

The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week that Canada Well being Infoway had tried to discover a non-public firm to take over the service in latest months. However that course of was not completed earlier than the non-profit’s board – made up largely of federal, provincial and territorial authorities representatives – moved to cancel this system altogether.

The service had largely been funded by the federal authorities. Canada Well being Infoway’s public data recommend PrescribeIT’s annual prices had been $35 million in recent times, including as much as greater than $250 million since 2017.

A few of these funds went to Telus Corp. subsidiary Telus Well being, which was the principle developer of PrescribeIT. The Globe beforehand reported that Telus retains possession of a lot of the mental property of PrescribeIT.

Guillaume Bertrand, spokesperson for well being minister Marjorie Michel, stated the service’s low adoption and the dearth of a “federal-provincial-territorial cost-sharing mannequin” in the end ended this system.

“Since its introduction, and regardless of the in depth work of our companion Infoway, the adoption stays beneath anticipated ranges,” Mr. Bertrand wrote in an e-mail.

He stated the federal government’s focus is now on the just lately launched Invoice S-5, which goals to make it simpler for sufferers and well being care suppliers to share and entry well being knowledge, together with medical data.

It units frequent requirements to hyperlink well being databases and prohibits corporations from blocking the switch of information, which is a matter that has been flagged by the federal Competitors Bureau as making it tough for physician’s places of work to change software program suppliers.

PrescribeIT had begun charging pharmacies a $0.20-per-prescription price in 2025 to make use of the service, which the Canadian Pharmacists Affiliation has cited as a purpose for its low use amongst pharmacies.

The Canadian Pharmacists Affiliation (CPhA) had urged Canada Well being Infoway to delay the implementation of its proposed $0.20 per transaction price for PrescribeIT, stating that the price would place vital monetary strain on pharmacies nationwide and sure lead to pharmacies dropping out of this system.

In a survey of greater than 1,300 Canadian pharmacists carried out in 2024 by CPhA, a majority (65%) of respondents stated they’d cease utilizing the PrescribeIT service altogether if the price is launched.