Consultant said she consulted herself. So eHealth paid her

EHealth Ontario paid a consultant who submitted an invoice for eight hours of work in which she said she consulted herself, then followed up with questions for herself.

Agency spokeswoman Deanna Allen said the bill contained a typo and that the consultant had in fact consulted and followed up with a colleague, but acknowledged the agency had paid the invoice as filed.

Documents obtained by the Toronto Star raise yet more questions about practices at the controversial agency.

Miyo Yamashita of Anzen Consulting Inc. filed an invoice to eHealth Ontario earlier this year for work on Jan. 6, 2009 that included receiving "instructions from M.Y. on privacy materials," sending information to "M.Y. for review" and "phone calls with M.Y. on follow-up questions."

Yamashita is a managing partner at Anzen, which received a four-month $268,000 contract to produce a communications plan and branding strategy for eHealth Ontario.

EHealth, established in 2008 to develop electronic health records for the province, is at the heart of a controversy involving high-priced consultants and untendered contracts, which critics say were awarded to long-time associates of key figures at the provincial agency.

The eHealth affair dominated yesterday's question period, the last before the Legislature's summer break.

The Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats called for the removal of Health Minister David Caplan, eHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer and board chair Dr. Alan Hudson.

Documents obtained by the PC party under a freedom-of-information request detail Anzen's contract, dated Oct. 6, 2008 to Jan. 30, 2009. The documents, obtained by the Star, also show Yamashita bills at $300 an hour.

Yamashita did not respond to requests for an interview by members of the press, but Anzen issued a statement yesterday.

"Anzen stands behind the work we have completed and invoiced to eHealth Ontario," Anzen's Sylvia Kingsmill said in an email. "We believe our work has been of high quality and our accounting highly transparent."

Documents also show Anzen submitted an invoice to eHealth for $7,000 for "speech writing services" for Kramer's address to an Ontario Hospital Association conference late last year.

The Anzen invoice, dated Nov. 30, 2008, shows that Anzen used Hugh MacPhie & Company, a boutique management-consulting firm, for speech-writing services. MacPhie used to work in former premier Mike Harris's office as a speech writer.

Industry experts say charging $7,000 for a speech is not unreasonable.

Interim PC Leader Bob Runciman charged yesterday in the Legislature that Caplan has failed to take proper action on eHealth and is defending "offensive" expenditures.

Premier Dalton McGuinty and Caplan again appealed to the opposition to wait until provincial Auditor General Jim McCarter completes his review of eHealth. An extensive third-party review is also in the works by PricewaterhouseCoopers at Caplan's request.

Anzen told the Toronto Star it looks forward to participating in the third-party reviews.

The culture of entitlement at eHealth Ontario is something "I have never seen before" in health care, said New Democrat MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt).

EHealth Ontario was established after the Smart Systems for Health Agency was dissolved last year. Smart Systems was criticized for spending $647 million in taxpayer dollars with little to show for it.

The opposition parties say eHealth contracts were awarded to long-time associates of Hudson and Kramer.

Yamashita is married to Michael Guerriere, the managing partner for Courtyard Group. Courtyard held three untendered contracts from eHealth Ontario worth nearly $2 million with start dates ranging from October 2008, to Jan. 30, 2009, the FOI documents show.

Hudson, a respected neurosurgeon who has helped transform wait times in Ontario, and Guerriere worked together at the University Health Network, both leaving in 2000.

Allen has told the Star that prior to Kramer's arrival at eHealth in November 2008, the board of directors, not Hudson, made decisions on contracts.

Hudson and Kramer were not available for interviews yesterday.

Courtyard has said it has also written to both the auditor general and the eHealth board to "welcome the independent reviews."