Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In November, I passed a motion in this House asking the Northwest Territories health system to stop using fax machines to send health records. This is from a 2018 report where the Chief Information and Privacy Commissioner asked the same thing. There have been numerous breaches over the years, including some egregious ones such as health records being sent to CBC North in 2010 and 2012.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Minister in the reply can finally put an end to us sending health records. However, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot more to do in the area of electronic medical records. Specifically, I would like to see an online patient portal. In fact, our electronic medical records system was initially set up with one, but the department never turned it on due to privacy concerns, an ironic answer considering their consistent breaches of health information.
Mr. Speaker, in BC, a patient can log on and they can see their x-rays, they can see their MRIs, they can see status of the lab tests, they can see status of all their reports, including doctors' notes about their medical history. This allows patients to own their information and know when something is missing. In Alberta, which uses a very similar system to ours and which is our number one sharing-of-information jurisdiction, you can log in and you can see the status of any COVID tests. It has been crucial to their pandemic response, having people see where their lab tests are. I have had numerous concerns from constituents who are one week out from a COVID test, wondering where it is. They simply could have logged on to a patient portal, in Alberta, and seen that information.
Mr. Speaker, I understand there was work being done to upgrade our electronic medical records; I understand there is work being done to end the use of fax machines, but this work is long overdue. I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services when this work will be completed and when we can let patients truly see all their health records so that we can put an end to the faxing, the CDs, the USBs, and the numerous ways we try to share our health information with our Alberta that leaves patients' files often incomplete and in a confused state of disarray. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
