HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government has signed a 10-year, $365 million contract with a health technology company to develop and manage an electronic health record program, first announced to be over seven years old.

Nova Scotia, one of the last Canadian provinces to still use paper medical records, says the system will be rolled out in hospitals and other care facilities within two years.

Health Secretary Michelle Thompson says medical professionals have been frustrated by a lack of access to important information about their patients for years.

When fully implemented, the system will replace or connect more than 80 existing medical record systems, giving thousands of healthcare workers real-time access to patient records.

Legacy systems are outdated, slow, and don’t easily transfer information between them, according to the government. The government says healthcare workers, on average, need to access at least five systems to get an accurate picture of a patient’s health information.

The minister says that once implemented, this project will reduce wait times for surgeries and duplicate testing requests, and improve emergency care. In addition, paramedics can instantly view a patient’s medical record.

The government signed a 10-year contract with Oracle Cerner to design, build and maintain the electronic medical records program. In March 2015, the government launched a tender for the development of the project.

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This story was prepared with financial support for the News from Meta Exchanges and The Canadian Press.