A pair of Ontario family doctors say they’ll have to go back to sending patient prescriptions to pharmacies by fax because a federally funded agency is doing away with an efficient electronic system, with no clear plans for its replacement.

“I feel like we’re going back to the dark ages,” said Dr. Colin Bolzon, who, along with his wife, Dr. Rebecca Robinson, serves a combined roster of 3,400 patients in a St. Thomas clinic they share with other doctors.

The problem the pair face is that Health Canada Infoway, a non-profit funded by the federal government, has announced its plans to shut down a service family doctors use called PrescribeIT on May 29.

The software allows doctors to instantly send drug prescriptions to pharmacies and approve prescription renewal requests with a click of a mouse. The system brings up the renewal request in an electronic prompt attached to each patient’s health record.

It’s a crucial tool because Bolzon said he receives up to 35 prescription renewal requests in a typical day while also handling about 30 daily in-person appointments.

“What PrescribeIT did is it cut the fax machine out,” said Bolzon. “With it, you can renew a patient’s prescription in seconds. It’s incredibly efficient.”

That efficiency is crucial, as Bolzon and Robinson — like many family doctors in Canada — struggle to avoid getting bogged down in record-keeping and other administrative work that can cut deeply into time for patient care.

Bolzon adopted PrescribeIT when he took over his practice from a retiring doctor in 2021. The software meets strict standards and is the only approved tool for managing prescriptions electronically.

Why shut it down?

So if PrescribeIT is helping doctors manage their patient loads and there’s no clear replacement in place, why pull the plug?

In a statement to CBC News, Canada Health Infoway said they worked with governments and system providers to keep PrescribeIT operating. However, the statement said there was no shared funding model and “no viable model emerged that would support the continued operation of a single national service over the long term.”

The statement said the goal is to create a publicly available national standard for electronic prescribing and that the standard “will be made publicly available” on May 1, just 28 days before PrescribeIT is shut down. The statement said this will allow other vendors to adopt that standard.

To Bolzon, the statement doesn’t make it clear what options, if any, doctors will have to replace PrescribeIT, starting in June.

Bolzon said he’s not opposed to a new system, but doesn’t see the sense in shutting down the current one when it’s helping doctors manage their patient load.

“I’m saying let’s keep what’s working for doctors who are using it until we have something better,” he said.

Potential bad outcomes for patients

Both doctors said losing an electronic system to manage records would be a backward step that could affect patient care and make it easier to commit prescription fraud.

“There’s a huge safety aspect of this,” said Robinson.

Also, added costs to doctors could be passed down to patients.

Bolzon said some doctors may choose to charge administration fees for renewals. Others may opt to shrink the size of their patient roster, or at least stop taking new patients, at a time when 2.5 million Ontarians are without a family doctor.

Bolzon said some doctors may ask patients to make in-person appointments for prescription renewals so they can charge the Ontario Health Insurance Plan for the visit.

That could create a barrier to care for patients in assisted living facilities or patients receiving palliative care. It would also gobble up available appointments with visits that are, in his view, ultimately not necessary for routine prescription renewals.

“These are real conversations that I have heard,” said Bolzon.

MP Lawton calls for clarity

Andrew Lawton, MP for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, has raised the issue with federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel.

“It’s 2026, the government should not be keeping the fax machine on life support,” he said.

Lawton said he supports moving to a new system for electronic prescribing, but said doctors should be told clearly what’s coming after May 29.

“Doctors who are already dealing with an insane amount of administration and bureaucracy had welcomed this alternative to it, and now, with very little notice and no communication, they’re being told they’re going to lose that.”