The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Ottawa says a national digital service to send prescriptions from doctors offices to pharmacies -- costing more than $250-million since its inception -- has been shut down because the program failed to replace fax machines and the provinces would not share the cost of running it. The Globe's Chris Hannay writes that Canada Health Infoway, a non-profit funded by the government that has run the service PrescribeIT since 2017, announced Thursday the program would shut down on May 29. It said the program would be replaced by a "national eprescribing standard" that it hoped other health-technology companies would adopt. Although thousands of pharmacies and doctor's offices across the country had signed up with PrescribeIT, few were using it. Less than 5 per cent of prescriptions were sent through PrescribeIT. Most are still sent by fax or on paper. Canada Health Infoway's public records suggest PrescribeIT's annual costs were $35-million in recent years, adding up to more than $250-million since 2017. Some of those funds went to Telus Health, which was the main developer of PrescribeIT. Telus retains ownership of much of the intellectual property of PrescribeIT.