The Graphic incorrectly reported last week the cost to implement electronic health records provincially as being $68 million over budget from the initial $13 million promised by former Conservative Health Minister Chester Gillan in 2006.
When the auditor general reviewed implementation of electronic health records in 2009 he pointed out that a completely accurate accounting is impossible because of how government accounted for costs in the initial stages.
The Ghiz government hired DeltaWare in 2007 to review and reset the program. Government now estimates total capital costs to date at $39 million. Of this the federal government has contributed $16.5 million and hospital auxiliaries $2.5 million. This results in a total cost to Island taxpayers to date of $20.4 million.
However, this cost does not include annual operating costs for the system, which the federal government does not cost share to the same level.
The DeltaWare report estimated annual operational costs from 2008 forward of roughly $4.5 million, or a minimum of $18 million since the report was authored. This is largely in the form of payments to Cerner, the American corporation delivering electronic health records.