e-Health -- dé·jà vu?

I'm sitting here looking out at the park just across from my office; the rain has been falling steadily over the past few days, and this has resulted in a healthy growth of grass.
A subcontractor had just repainted the soccer pitch boundary lines -- I could see him standing back, admiring his handiwork.
To my astonishment, as soon as the painter left, the Town's mowing machines appeared and began cutting the grass, obliterating the work just completed; this begs the following questions:

• Could the Operations department of the Town not take the time to coordinate these services (for example, having their employees electronically update a task sheet after mowing the park, which would then alert the painter to do his thing)
• Who should really pay for the painter to return -- we all know this will simply be added to taxpayers' tab

This is the type of situation that tends to raise one's ire, and allows me to segue to a recent news article:
http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/cancer/article/1030897--missing-packages-put-health-info-of-12-000-at-risk that describes yet another  fiasco pertaining to the loss of  health data.
Similar to the painter, I'm reading and asking: Did we not just paint these lines?
Remember the situation in Durham Region (http://durhamregion.com/article/177663) whereby local taxpayers are being held ransom to a potential $40 million lawsuit, again for lost health data?

Well, I suspect the mowing machines from the courts are gonna come calling with a class action to add yet another pile to our tab.
Did authorities not learn anything from the Durham Region loss? How many more similar lawsuits can we endure?
The part that really hits home for me was the following (my highlighting):

“Obviously, we are taking this very seriously,” Matthews told the Star’s Tanya Talaga, adding if the province had a far reaching system of electronic health records, this would not have happened.


“Health privacy is vitally important and when you think about the benefits of eHealth this is another one — when health records no longer have to be mailed...”

No kidding, Ms. Matthews! This tells me that perhaps one (or both) of the following is (are) true, at this time, for whatever reason(s):

• the Ministry is uninterested in shaking up eHealth
• the Ministry is powerless to do anything to improve the state of eHealth

Which do you think it is?
In any event, if you're part of the Ontario electorate, you'll have your chance to help make a change soon -- hope you'll jump at the opportunity!


Ernest A. James

President & CEO
Regal Informatics Inc.