Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the concerns also raised by committee was the nature of engagement on procurement policies that it is to educate private sector actors on how to engage with the government's policies rather than to get feedback on procurement, I understand, if there are any concerns or complaints. Is the department investing additional resources to improve its engagement efforts with contractors who are benefiting from procurement or perhaps frustrated with how procurement is working? I'll put it this way, Mr. Chair: if the policies are not the issue, then the engagement must be...

The question I spoke of was: what if kids want to stay here and do those degrees? The option is to make them leave the territory? That is kind of counterproductive to that questioning. The Minister just said that this is a foundational review, not a program review, and yet he is telling us now that he is frozen on these two programs. So which is it? Is it a foundational review or a program review? Because we have these programs that are currently unavailable to northern students who want to take training in these careers here in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, in its review of this department's business plans, the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment recommended that the Department of Infrastructure conduct an independent review of its procurement policy and work with the Department of Finance to survey prompt payment initiatives across Canada and develop a better model for the territory. I would like to know how this budget responds to those concerns. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister also commit to providing more clarity on the types of information systems that are being used by the health authority? Previously, I spoke of 15 different systems. I understand some are going to be retained and some are going to be rolled into one. Can the Minister provide some clarity on that or commit to providing more clarity on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is there any sense of what we can expect those costs to be? Thank you.

I am not sure if that was a yes, no, or a maybe, but I will ask for more specificity perhaps. This is a very progressive piece of legislation, it is a very complex piece of legislation, and it allows patients a lot of control over their information. Can the Minister confirm if there are systems currently in place to allow patients to protect the privacy of their medical information from health care practitioners?

Thank you. Nothing further.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I am trying to get at with the Minister here is that, yes, there are diagnostic systems, there are different systems like that, but it seems like there are a number of systems that are used for patient information, and we still have this issue with masking, that the functionality does not seem to be there. So I will ask the Minister: what is the work that is undergoing to modify the electronic medical record system to allow masking of patient information? What are the costs and projected timelines of that? Thank you.

If the Minister would indulge me, yes. Thank you.

So, I have it here. The electronic medical record system is a system of patient information used in healthcare clinics for scheduling, longitudinal charting, and billing to support the delivery of patient care, and it's available to all health authorities, whereas the MediPatient system referred to in the Information and Privacy Commissioner report indicates that it's local hospital patient information used by several NWT health and social services authorities and includes admission, discharge, radiology, rehabilitation, and scheduling functions. So are some authorities still using the...