Wynne says eHealth is not up for sale

Man behind Hydro One sale says there is opportunity in health records system

Premier Kathleen Wynne says her privatization czar is only looking at ways to improve eHealth Ontario, not sell off the electronic health records system.

“There is no possibility of the sale or the commercial use of people’s health information,” Wynne said Monday, seeking to allay concerns about her business guru’s upcoming appraisal of eHealth.

“Ed Clark did an assessment of the LCBO. There are changes that are being made to the liquor laws in this province. There are changes that have come about as a result of the work that Ed Clark did. But there is no sell-off of that asset,” Wynne said.

Aside from being the architect of expanded beer and wine sales in supermarkets, Clark, the influential former TD Bank CEO who is now Wynne’s unpaid adviser, spearheaded the share offering of Hydro One.

That has triggered fears that somehow eHealth could be privatized. (The 10-year mandate for the system expires at the end of 2017.)

“Let’s be honest, his experience in valuing public assets means selling public assets,” said NDP MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo).

“There’s a big difference between the LCBO and people’s medical records in the province of Ontario,” said Fife, who added that “you cannot blame the people of this province for having serious trust issues when this government starts talking about privatization.”

But Clark said his mandate is “to get more out of that asset” by finding ways to make it work better for patients.

“There’s nothing in eHealth that I think anyone could think about selling. This is not about that,” the Bay Street banker told reporters, following a speech to the Canadian Club on Monday.

“I’m a huge believer in the healthcare system in Ontario. It’s a differentiator for us. As a knowledge economy, we should hang onto the system we have . . . but we have to keep finding better and better ways to run that system,” he said.

Clark will report his findings to Health Minister Eric Hoskins before the end of the year.

“There’s a real opportunity here,” he said, to give Ontarians better medical care.

“Digitizing your health care is a way you can have huge productivity advantages and, equally important, get better outcomes and let the consumer — the patient — actually participate in their own health care,” he said, adding that eHealth’s technology could be used in other jurisdictions.

“Some of the stuff is so good that people want to license it and do it in other provinces, but that’s a good thing for Ontario, not a bad thing.

“But that’s not the main focus of this.”

On Oct. 7, the Friday afternoon of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Hoskins issued an open letter to Clark requesting his help “in valuing public and private assets with respect to Ontario’s digital health strategy.”

“I would ask you to provide the government with a value assessment of Ontario’s digital health assets and all related intellectual property and infrastructure,” the minister wrote.

Hoskins’ move came as auditor general Bonnie Lysykis preparing an audit of eHealth to be released in her annual report to the legislature in late November or early December. A 2009 auditor general’s report found $1 billion had been spent on eHealth with little to show for it by that point, and a 2012 audit found $24.4 million was spent on an electronic registry of diabetes patients that was scrapped.