PrescribeIT lives to see another day in Quebec with new funding from province

The embattled non-profit behind PrescribeIT has announced it has signed a deal to continue its e-prescribing service in Quebec, months after it was shut down in the rest of the country.In a July 17 press release, Canada Health Infoway said it had signed a deal with the Quebec government and Santé Québec to continue Prescription Québec, which was built off of the PrescribeIT platform.Infoway had previously announced that PrescribeIT would be shut down nationwide on May 29, 2026, despite the fact that $300 million of federal taxpayer money was poured into this service. But in Quebec, the provincial government had been rolling out Prescription Québec as a pilot project with 14 community pharmacies and 138 prescribers in eight clinics since May 2024. A week before PrescribeIT was scheduled to shut down, Health Minister Sonia Bélanger announced that the Prescription Québec pilot project would be extended for at least another three months. Now, with this new funding from Quebec, Infoway says e-prescriptions through Prescription Québec will continue as the pilot project moves forward to its “next phase,” with the goal of implementing the service in 1,900 pharmacies across Quebec by 2027-2028.“Québec’s leadership demonstrates how jurisdictional priorities, existing digital health infrastructure and practical implementation can come together to support secure electronic prescribing and enable safer, more connected care for patients, clinicians, pharmacists and health systems,” Abhi Kalra, interim president and CEO of Infoway said in the news release.There’s no word from any of the parties of this deal on how much money would be involved. In a statement to the Globe and Mail, which broke the story, Santé Québec said it would be “premature to comment” on the exact level of funding, but confirmed that it was a four-year agreement. Infoway’s decision to shut down PrescribeIT was due to low uptake, as only 5% of prescriptions were being processed through the platform. The service was free of charge for pharmacists until January 2025, when Infoway introduced a $0.20-per-script transaction fee. That prompted anger among pharmacists, many of whom dropped the service after the fee was implemented.But in Quebec, pharmacists using Prescription Québec were not subject to any transaction fee as the service was co-developed and funded by the provincial government.Meanwhile, the investigation into Infoway from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health remains ongoing. The fallout from the scrutiny into how Infoway was spending tax dollars has since led to the dismissal of Infoway CEO Michael Green, a third-party audit ordered by Health Canada and the temporary freezing of $50 million in ongoing federal funding to the non-profit.

PrescribeIT lives to see another day in Quebec with new funding from province

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