Advancing Connected Care – A Modern Solution for Today and Tomorrow’s Healthcare System

As we are faced with extraordinary health system strain, there is an undeniable need for a broader transformation within the Canadian healthcare system to meet rising demand. Guided by a vision of healthier Canadians through innovative digital health solutions, Canada Health Infoway is answering the call, bringing key stakeholders across the country towards a shared and reimagined future that ensures all Canadians have access to the excellent healthcare they expect and deserve.

Understanding Connected Care

Directly at the heart of this transformation is Connected Care. Connected Care is all about creating a more integrated and collaborative healthcare system that supports better health outcomes for all Canadians. A connected health system unlocks the power of data by enabling the secure and seamless flow of patient health information across health information systems, between care providers, and most importantly, to patients.

Greater healthcare interoperability is foundational to the success of Connected Care in Canada. Interoperability enables different health information systems to securely access, exchange, and effectively use health data by ensuring they "speak the same language." This seamless communication allows healthcare providers to access and interpret patient data across various care settings, improving care accuracy and efficiency while facilitating more continuous and coordinated patient care.

Who Does This Benefit?

But when healthcare systems can’t talk to each other; Canadians pay the price. Through a more connected healthcare system, patients can benefit from greater access to their own health data, empowering them to play a more active role in their own health journey, regardless of where they live.

Connected Care presents a unified approach for the Canadian healthcare system that has far-reaching benefits. For clinicians, this means streamlined workflows, reduced professional burnout and timely, coordinated patient care. At the same time, Vendors are also empowered to pilot and scale solutions, fostering local innovation with the potential for nationwide adoption and playing a key role in modernizing Canada's healthcare system. Similarly, governments benefit from more informed health system planning, improved population health, and streamlined operations that save time and money while keeping their residents healthier.

By enabling a more connected healthcare system, we can improve care coordination and give providers the tools, information, and insights they need to provide more effective, quality healthcare, ultimately supporting better patient outcomes and benefitting all Canadians now and far into the future.

Canada Health Infoway’s Role

Connected Care plays a multi-faceted role in the Canadian healthcare system. It requires meaningful collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders to be successfully brought to life. As such, Infoway is leading the way in healthcare interoperability by bringing together digital health ecosystem partners like governments, healthcare organizations, private sector vendors and partners, healthcare providers, and patients to make Connected Care a reality for all Canadians.

Canada Health Infoway‘s Shared pan-Canadian Interoperability Roadmap serves as a framework in achieving Connected Care through the advancement of interoperable health systems across the provinces and territories. Designed to deliver on Health Canada’s shared health priority of modernizing the healthcare system with standardized information and digital tools to ensure providers and patients have access to electronic health information, the Roadmap emphasizes the importance of moving toward a more unified approach across jurisdictions while outlining a clear, collaborative pathway for achieving interoperability goals.

The strategic initiatives and building blocks outlined in the Roadmap provide the foundation necessary to ensure healthcare providers and their systems can effectively, consistently and securing communicate with one another, while maintaining flexibility for each jurisdiction to meet the unique needs of it’s citizens. In doing so, the Roadmap is paving the way for a more integrated and efficient Canadian healthcare system rooted in Connected Care.

Where We Are and Where We’re Going

Work is well underway with Infoway’s public and private sector partners to advance Connected Care through various initiatives. On the clinical side, this includes programs such as the Infoway Centre for Innovation in Digital Health (CIDH), a collaborative initiative aimed at driving meaningful engagement with clinical leaders and learners to accelerate the adoption of Connected Care.

The Centre’s first initiative, the Connected Care Innovation Grant, launched this Spring and aims to support clinical leaders across Canada in advancing grassroot clinical initiatives that support the progress of digital health interoperability efforts. As the grant application period has closed, I am pleased to see over 100 applications from across the country. We look forward to announcing the successful recipients in the coming month and the impact these projects will bring to local communities and Canadians nationwide.

Another initiative that I highlighted in my previous article is the advancement of the pan-Canadian Patient Summary Specification (PS-CA), a comprehensive framework that can ensure a patient’s most essential health information is shared and received accurately, safely and consistently across different settings. Further, Infoway’s recent announcement with Microquest and Alberta spotlights the tremendous health system impact public-private partnerships have in the advancement of Connected Care initiatives, like the PS-CA.

Importantly, the Roadmap has also laid the foundation for some critical health ecosystem advancements across Canada. Among them is the Working Together Bilateral Health Agreements, which allocates significant federal funding to the provinces and territories to advance key Connected Care initiatives, many of which are outlined in the Roadmap. Furthermore, Bill C-72, also known as the Connected Care for Canadians Act was recently introduced by the Federal Health Minister, Mark Holland, this spring. While this legislation is newly introduced and there is much work to be done, the core initiatives outlined in Infoway’s Roadmap can support the path ahead, including the adoption of strong digital health standards and the prevention of data blocking through clear, enforceable pan-Canadian requirements.

This is an incredibly exciting moment for Canadian healthcare modernization. We must act now and with purpose, seizing this momentum to transform our healthcare system for the better.

Readers, are there any Connected Care initiatives you most excited to see unfold?