Canada Health Infoway is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in transforming health care through innovation. Our Summary Corporate Plan for 2017-2018, essentially our business plan for the coming fiscal year, outlines four important goals that focus on digital health innovation:
- Promote medication safety, patient and provider convenience and efficiency through PrescribeIT™, a multi-jurisdiction e-prescribing solution;
- Scale and spread innovative solutions, especially in priority areas where digital health has demonstrated the greatest potential;
- Connect Canadians with their health information so they can more actively manage their health and wellness; and
- Continue to provide thought leadership in digital health by influencing relevant policies and legislation, and leading efforts in solution architecture, clinical interoperability, standards as well as privacy and security.
These goals are closely aligned with the federal government’s health care priorities, including tackling the opioid crisis, and addressing needs like homecare, mental health services and services for Canada’s indigenous peoples. We were grateful to receive $50 million in the government’s 2016 Budget to begin work on an e-prescribing solution, which will help address the opioid crisis, and to advance telehomecare, which will reduce pressures related to hospital stays and emergency room visits. We are confident that with additional funding in 2017, we will be able to make further progress in these priority areas.
We will also work with our jurisdictional partners to help Canadians connect to their health information through their preferred digital device. Research shows that Canadians with this access are more knowledgeable about their health, more confident in the care they receive and have more informed discussions with their care providers. Finally, Infoway will continue to provide leadership in key areas that are essential for the advancement of digital health across Canada – privacy and security, solution architecture and standards, interoperability, change management, and the effective use of emerging technologies.
We look forward to working with our many partners to achieve our goals for 2017-2018 and deliver the next wave of digital health innovation that will truly empower Canadians, improve health, transform quality and reduce health system costs.
I invite you to read our 2017-2018 Summary Corporate Plan.
If you have any comments about the plan, I would love to hear from you!
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