Montreal Gazette - Incentive for use is the missing link, McGill epidemiologist says

Quebec's plan to computerize all health records was doomed to fail from the start because physicians and pharmacists were not given any incentives to take part in it, says a McGill University epidemiologist who has studied similar systems around the world.

"In theory, this was a great plan because it meant that the medical information would be accessible no matter where you were," said Robyn Tamblyn, of McGill's clinical and health informatics research group.

"But what got us bogged down is that we didn't invest in the users at the front lines - meaning the private clinics, the CLSC clinics, the hospital emergency rooms - so that these people could connect to the software."

Tamblyn was responding to a report on Wednesday by provincial auditor-general Renaud Lachance on the Dossier de santé du Québec, in which he called the centralized electronic medical records system a "failure."

The DSQ was supposed to be completed by last year and was intended to cut health costs by 20 per cent. Government officials now say it will be ready five years from now.