Expect glitches with new, Quebec EHR, chief says

QUEBEC CITY – We should expect minor technical issues in the first few weeks following the rollout of the Digital Health Record (DSN), which is still scheduled for May 9, confirmed Geneviève Biron (pictured), president and CEO of Santé Québec.

“In the first few weeks, we’ll hear about problems. That’s normal, because there are minor adjustments to be made,” she explained in an interview with La Presse Canadienne.

The DSN is eagerly awaited by the medical community, which has long sought better sharing of patient information. Currently, it is difficult for a doctor to access essential information about a patient who has seen various specialists over the past few months or years.

Biron also expressed delight that medical specialists have resumed participating in the DSN.

As a reminder, last week, the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec (FMSQ) asked its members to get back on board with the electronic health records initiative. The federation had previously asked them to stop participating in the DSN as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the government.

The FMSQ made this decision because it does not want to be blamed for any potential malfunctions or delays.

“They’re back, things are picking up steam, and we’re very happy about that,” said Biron to a crowd of CEOs and healthcare professionals at the Première ligne en santé conference, which was held at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

Biron assured that the company responsible for implementing the DSN (the American firm Epic Systems) is supporting Santé Québec in this major digital transformation of the healthcare system.

Ultimately, IT systems will be connected, and all patient clinical data – including medication prescriptions – will be accessible throughout the system.

The company has warned Santé Québec that there will be an initial spike in support tickets, commonly referred to as “IT tickets,” at the start of the rollout. “During the first four weeks, the numbers go up, and then they gradually decrease. They showed us the trends from all previous deployments,” Biron said in an interview.

A typical issue would be, for example, an employee who is unable to log in properly.

“I want to say this right away because we’re going to hear about it, and I just don’t want everything to be called into question because of this potential issue with tickets during the first few weeks of such a major rollout, but this is software that is highly regarded around the world,” Biron emphasized.

The DSN will first be rolled out in two regions: North of the Island of Montreal and Mauricie-and-Central Quebec. These two pilot projects were scheduled to launch in late November 2025, but Santé Québec announced it was pausing the rollout due to a cost overrun of approximately $100 million for the project.

Once the two pilot projects are up and running, the government agency will assess their success, and the system is expected to be expanded throughout Quebec.

According to Biron, it could be beneficial not to have just one software system, but three or four, always with the goal of consolidating the vast number of different software systems currently in the healthcare network. For the present, we must not eliminate “the possibility of having competitive software,” because “we become dependent on the company.”

“I want to let the teams conduct the evaluation properly,” she says, “but it would be better to have two or three across the entire network so that we always have an alternative. We’re not immune to the possibility that something might happen to the company,” she emphasizes, mindful of the digital sovereignty issues that have been raised in recent months, particularly with the SAAQclic fiasco.

Biron would like to see “a few alternatives” to the DSN, but she wants to ensure that the software is “interoperable.” In other words, when other software is connected, everyone has the same information, which allows for better sharing of patient data.