Ontarian's immunizations not being efficiently tracked, AG report shows

It is the early days of flu season, and while health advocates across Canada are urging the public to seek out flu vaccinations, some of them may not be tracking who actually does.

In Ontario, at least, there is no reliable database of information on who has received immunization coverage for diseases such as measles and the flu. Or whether the programs are being run in a cost-effective manner.

That announcement came on Tuesday as the province’s Auditor General published a wide-ranging report on the state of the province.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk says that while the operational funding for Ontairo’s immunization program was $350 million last fiscal year, “the Ministry doesn’t track the total costs of the program.”

She added there is little co-ordination on the part of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care with immunization programs run by 36 municipal health units in the province.

“We also found that most information the Ministry has on whether children have been immunized relies on parents reporting it to public health units, often years after their children have been vaccinated, making the province’s immunization coverage information less reliable than if captured at the time vaccines are administered,” she said in a statement.

It is somewhat worrying as a notion to think that the agency responsible for immunizing, and presumably tracking, Ontarians isn’t offering much oversight.

Ontario is currently running an expansive flu vaccination push.

But the province’s immunization efforts go beyond that. They account for the vaccination of 16 infectious diseases, including diphtheria, tetanus, shingles and rubella.

While there haven’t been any significant outbreaks of such diseases, the Auditor General said good information is necessary when identifying potential risks. Meaning the lack of oversight could become a cause for concern in the future.

The number of publicly funded vaccines has doubled in Ontario since 2003, but there is no indication of their impact on the health system.

The report noted that last year, there were almost 21,000 instances where physicians and pharmacists were paid more than once for administering vaccines to the same person. And almost one million doses of the flu vaccine have simply gone unaccounted for.

It is also important to note that Ontario’s child-immunization rates are below the federal target.

So how does Ontario improve its system? It could follow the path of Manitoba, Alberta, New York State and Australia, all of which require information to be submitted at the time when a vaccination is given, rather than require any sort of follow-up.

The Ministry submitted a response to the report, saying it agrees that accurate immunization information is important in ensuring a “robust provincial immunization repository.”

The Auditor General’s 2014 Annual Report went further than just raising concerns about the province’s immunization program. The 600-page report suggested that the government was failing to deliver services efficiently in a number of areas.

"In some areas, taxpayers did not get value for money from the large amounts of public money spent. In other cases, services were not delivered as effectively as Ontarians have a right to expect,” Lysyk said.

Among the most notable inefficiencies were these:

• The government spent $2 billion installing “smart” electric meters across the province, but the benefits was limited by its objective of reducing the amount of power used at peak times.

• Fourteen years after the Walkerton tainted water tragedy, Ontario has still not implemented all of its water protection plans

• Ontario’s immigration nominees program lacks effective controls, and attempted immigration fraud is not always reported.