While the United States was enjoying its national Thanksgiving holiday last Thursday, officials of London, Ontario, hospitals were busy putting out the fires created by an IT architect who blew the whistle on outsourcing talks with U.S.-based Cerner Corp.
At stake was the livelihood of 30 IT professionals and questions over whether patient data would be stored in the U.S. if the deal is finalized. While the London hospitals insist that the data will be stored locally and that privacy and security of the information is their top concern, the controversy marks yet another setback for the beleaguered efforts of the Canadian government to implement electronic health records for its citizens.
Thus far, for instance, the province of Ontario has little to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into an EHR system over the years. Officials say the move to Cerner would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. Is this the case of being penny wise but pound foolish? Or is this really the case of throwing more money at an ill-conceived project?
Certainly the loss of local IT experts as a result of outsourcing is huge for the hospital systems and the community at large. They take with them not only institutional knowledge but local trust. In addition, public backlash from outsourcing is also a hot-button issue, especially in this drawn-out recession.
Ontario Progressive Conservative health critic Christine Elliott certainly has an argument when she says the government is implementing a one-off solution that will get the London hospitals talking to one another, but it likely will impede province-wide efforts at interoperability.
Elliott's observation is that continued piecemeal efforts to simply achieve computerization of patient records and health information exchange will result in even greater financial waste.
Federal, state and local multi-stakeholders take heed: A well-thought-out strategy for EHR adoption and interoperability from the beginning requires coordination, collaboration and trust.
Photo by Munkho_09 courtesy of Creative Commons license.
