Health staff at Santé Québec are gearing up to launch the pilot project of the province’s digital overhaul of medical documents on May 9.
The digital health record will see two regional health authorities scale back non-urgent care by 75 to 50 per cent in the first four weeks of its rollout, as staff familiarize themselves with the new system.
“Yes, things will slow down. Yes, there will be change-itis, transition-itis,” said Marc Rodger, physician-in-chief at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).
Quebec isn’t the first province to move towards digitization. Rodger was part of a rollout team in a hospital in Ontario when a similar project was launched in 2019. He says most of the services that were rolled back were ones that were already pre-planned, like appointments.
“Whether I saw you this month or next month would make a difference. So we displaced the visits to next month,” Rodger said.
“Other hospitals in the region that weren’t implementing the system were available to us if we needed to call on them.”
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Hospitals under the CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’île-de-Montréal and the Mauricie–Centre-du-Québec region will be the first to test the project
Health staff say they’ve already been training in the lead-up to the launch.
“It isn’t until you’re actually interacting and using the system that you learn it,” Rodger said.
Santé Québec says operations have already been reduced by 75 per cent since Monday. They’ll go back to 50 cent on May 4 before services fully resume by May 25.
The health body says all urgent care and oncology services will be maintained.
“In a limited number of well-defined situations, a slight adjustment of a few days to the timing of certain treatments may be considered, always based on clinical judgment and only when completely safe,” Santé Québec said in a statement.
Health staff at Santé Québec are gearing up to launch the pilot project of the province’s digital overhaul of medical documents on May 9.
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CityNews spoke to Montrealers who questioned the scaling back of care.
“You can’t reduce services. Period,” one person said.
“If you reduce now, there’s already a backlog, so what’s going to happen?” said another.
“We’re already short-staffed everywhere. I don’t think this is a good idea,” added a third.
The digital overhaul comes against the backdrop of Quebec recording an increase in the number of active physicians in the province. There are 350 more practicing physicians in Quebec than a year ago, according to the Collège des médecins du Québec.
The job for the Quebec government is now to win those doctors over to the public system, patient advocate Paul Brunet says.
“We need them. Will they come?” said Brunet, the chair of the Montreal Council for the Protection of Patients.
Numbers from Quebec’s health insurance board show a near 60 per cent increase in the number of private-sector doctors since 2022.
“In Saguenay, it’s 15 doctors who have left because of Bill 2 and they’re not coming back,” Brunet said. “So we don’t need another fight between doctors and the government.”
