It's not clear how much progress Canada has made toward having electronic health records available to half of its population by the end of this year, says Auditor General Sheila Fraser. (iStock)

Federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser says governments need better data on the health-care system's performance.

Fraser says full implementation of electronic health records by doctors and hospitals would provide better information for assessing how well the system is doing.

The auditor general was speaking to delegates Tuesday at the Canadian Medical Association's annual meeting in Niagara Falls, Ont.

Fraser said information on health-care performance — in the short term and through long-term projections — is critical to help federal, provincial and territorial governments improve planning and show whether tax dollars are being spent wisely.

She said economic projections suggest health care will take an ever-bigger slice of government budgets as the proportion of Canadians over 65 continues to grow.

"There's certainly improvement that is needed in reporting to Canadians on how effective their health-care systems are," Fraser later told a media briefing. "We don't know if we're getting good value for money."

E-health progress unclear

The auditor general said an assessment by her office of federal transfer payments to the provinces found that in most cases there were no conditions surrounding how the money was used.

Fraser said an audit of Canada Health Infoway, the body charged with promoting the implementation of electronic health reporting across the country, shows it has a good system in place and does rigorous assessment of projects before agreeing to fund them.

She said it's not clear, however, how much progress Infoway has made in its goal to have electronic health records available to half of Canada's population by the end of this year.

"To date, it only reports if systems are completed, not whether health-care professionals are using the systems or whether completed systems are compatible. Consequently, parliamentarians and Canadians do not have a real sense of progress achieved to date."

Add sustainability to Canada Health Act

Also on Tuesday, CMA delegates voted to urge the federal government to provide more funding and support for electronic medical records. Such records would enable the rapid collection, analysis and sharing of clinical and public health data for "public health and emergency surveillance purposes," the CMA said.

The item appeared on an unofficial list of motions adopted at the meeting and posted on the CMA's meeting website.

Outgoing CMA president Dr. Anne Doig said the medical association wants sustainability added as a sixth principle of the Canada Health Act, which sets out federal conditions for health funding to the provinces and territories.

The five principles of health care enshrined in the act include universality, accessibility and portability across jurisdictions.

Doig said it's premature to speculate how "sustainability" would be added to the statute — and whether certain health services might be delisted if medicare turns out to be a bank-breaker in the future.

“Public reporting on the performance of the health system in Canada is piecemeal at best and non-existent at worst,” Doig said. “Without this critical ‘report-back’ function, Canadians have virtually no information about how well — or how poorly — their health system is working.”

The meeting ends Wednesday.