Quebec to move forward with digitization of health records in May, addresses cybersecurity concerns

The Quebec government is gearing up to launch its latest digitization project with Santé Québec by May 9.

The goal is to centralize all of the province’s patient medical data into a single platform.

“Quebec is way behind in terms of digitization and we need a modern system for our patients,” said Dr. Raja Hatem, an interventional cardiologist at Sacré-Cœur Hospital.

“Will it diminish productivity initially? Yes. Will it be much better in the future? Definitely.”

The pilot phase for Quebec’s digital health records will roll out in hospitals under the CIUSSS du Nord-de-L’île-de-Montréal and the Mauricie–Centre-du-Québec region.

It comes with a price tag of about $402 million, with the full province-wide rollout expected to cost up to $3 billion.

Officials say the system will go live early in the morning on launch day.

“With the DSN, this information will be available in real time to the entire care team, which means greater efficiency,” said Natalie Petitclerc, the president and CEO of CIUSSS de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec.

‘Worried for my older colleagues’

But the move comes amid questions from medical professionals about how exactly the plan will be rolled out.

Hatem says onboarding is already underway, with staff taking training courses of up to 12 hours to learn the new system.

“I’m of the younger generation, so I’m very familiar with computers and digital stuff,” the cardiologist said. “I’m more worried for my older colleagues. This is a big change for them.”

Santé Québec says it will temporarily scale back non-urgent care during the rollout. Operations will be reduced by 75 per cent starting April 27, then to 50 per cent a week later. Services will gradually return before being at 100 per cent on May 25.

“Technical standpoint, it allows you to do a lot. The problem is implementation,” a medical professional told CityNews outside the Montreal General Hospital.

Health officials say staff will be fully integrated by the fall.

“We expect this rebound to take place around September, after the summer break,” said Adélaïde De Melo, the president and CEO of CIUSSS du Nord-de-L’île-de-Montréal.

More than 4,000 support staff will also be deployed on-site to help, including teams from the system’s U.S.-based provider, Epic Systems.

“On day one we will have problems. There are some people who don’t exactly have the digital dexterity,” acknowledged Erika Bially, the vice-president of information technology at Santé Québec.

Cybersecurity risks?

The use of an American company is also raising questions about data security, particularly under U.S. laws like the Cloud Act, which would allow the government to seize information from private companies.

“It is not a permission to go into the buffet of data,” said cybersecurity expert Steve Waterhouse.

“Every public administration across the country that uses Microsoft to run this country is at risk also against this logic.”

Waterhouse, the former assistant deputy minister of government information security and cyber security in Quebec, argues the bigger risk may come during the transition itself, as information is copied or moved between systems.

“The risk relies mainly on having other copies, let’s say, three, four, five times the number of copies, ‘just in case,’” he explained.

Santé Québec says safeguards are in place, including strong contract rules and other measures like storing data within Quebec-based data centres.

“Our contract is very clear: the data belongs to Santé Québec and nobody can use it without our authorization, including the provider,” Bially said.