Blog: Infoway Connects

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Dr. Michael Hamilton

It’s important not to think of e-prescribing as an isolated end in itself. We really need a whole system and process built around getting medicines to patients — from drug regulation and oversight, to drug manufacturing, to packaging and labelling, through pharmacists and pharmacy software, dispensing systems, and even a patient’s own medicine cabinets. All of these aspects of the system need to interact at a high degree of accuracy and integrity to ensure safety.

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Cassie Frazer

As a parent of adolescents, naturally I was curious about the topic at hand — providing adolescents with access to their electronic personal health information (PHI); and I wondered about the perceptions of others in Canada as well. For me, the question was not, “should adolescents have access to their PHI” as I believe this right exists, but rather “how should this access be facilitated” in an electronic health record environment?

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Bobby Gheorghiu and Sukirtha Tharmalingam

For ten years, Infoway has been exploring with different ways of measuring progress that accurately and coherently convey the progress in digital health across the country. Earlier in our mandate, availability of systems was deemed to be a core measure since it tracks clinical data in provincial/territorial assets for the use of clinicians and other health system professionals. This measure did an excellent job in conveying progress in building infrastructure right up to the point of go-live. However, what it did not do was give an indication of how many people were actually using these systems and how often they were doing so.

Posted on October 31 by Dr. Kumanan Wilson and Katherine Atkinson

In this digital world, people need digital solutions to manage their health and navigate the complex health systems. This is why The Ottawa Hospital mHealth Research Team will be talking about an innovative solution to help Canadians track their immunization records at the 2016 Canada Health Infoway Partnership Conference.

Posted on October 27 by Shelagh Maloney

We live in a digital age and like every other aspect of our lives, Canada’s health system becomes more digital every day. Digital health solutions can be used to book a medical appointment, request a prescription renewal, view health information or consult with a doctor, online. These new technologies are modernizing the health system and making Canadians and their families healthier. Recently we put together a Digital Health Top 10 — what do you think?

Posted on October 20, 2016 by  Fraser Ratchford

In this series of blog posts, we’ve been celebrating five years of running innovation challenges at Canada Health Infoway by passing on the knowledge we’ve gained from that experience. In doing so, we have pointed out our successes to show what has worked. Yet, we know innovation is just as much about taking risks and learning from failures as it is about emulating examples of success. So in this post, we’ve illustrated some of the ideas and tactics that didn’t quite pan out.

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Cassie Frazer

Have you ever wondered how the “electronic health system” will know who you are and whether or not you have the right to access your personal health information (PHI)? Depending on one’s age, the answers to these questions may vary. As an adult, one may just assume they have a right to their health information; yet a young child will not likely have given these concepts a thought. For individuals aged somewhere in between however, such as a 14- or 16-year-old, having access to one’s own electronic health information may be of increasing interest and importance.

Posted on September 21, 2016 by  Fraser Ratchford

In the first post in this blog series celebrating five years of ImagineNation Challenges, we described the results of the ImagineNation Challenges by the numbers. That post helped to illustrate scope and scale of what the challenges achieved. In this post, we take a reflective look on the more intangible impact of our challenges.

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Bobby Gheorghiu

Earlier this summer, at e-Health 2016, I had the pleasure of moderating a very interesting and distinguished panel of clinical researchers from British Columbia who described each of their initiatives aimed at providing virtual care for patients with various types of chronic diseases. While the technical solutions that each presented were different, many common threads emerged that should get on the radar of policymakers throughout the country. At the top of the list were these three: simplicity, ubiquity, and affordability.

Posted on September 06, 2016 by Beverly Knight and Claudia Brown

Despite investments in jurisdictional immunization registries, data within them remains incomplete. Immunization information exists in silos. As with other areas in health care, the administration of vaccines is complex and handled differently in each province and territory. Although there has been a number of groups that have initiated work to fill gaps in electronic sharing of the data; there has been little to no coordination of effort.

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Joan Roch

A lot of organizations are interested in giving people more access to their health information. They are building portals and apps so people can have that access.

But a question that always arises is: “Should people under the age of majority be able to access portals in the same way as someone over the age of majority?” Currently, the age of majority is 18 years of age in some provinces/territories and 19 in others. This is the age at which an individual attains full rights and responsibilities in society, such as the right to vote and to consume alcohol.

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Michael Green

By early 2017, Nova Scotia will be the first province in Canada to offer all residents secure online access to their health information.

MyHealthNS is an online tool, or portal, that enables patients and doctors to share information, including routine test results. Once patients have created their secure online health record, they can receive and store test results and specialist reports electronically. They can also log health information, such as blood pressure readings, immunizations, allergies and medications. And, they can view and manage their information on any web-enabled device.

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Bobbi Reinholdt

There are many factors to be concerned about when it comes to the safe use of prescription medications. For example, 39 per cent of Canadians aged 55+ take four or more medications.And Canada is now the second largest consumer of prescription opioids in the world, according to the Canadian Center for Addiction. So given the current landscape, what are some of the steps we can take for the safer use of prescription medication? One important step is e-prescribing — the secure electronic transmission of a prescription from a prescriber to a patient’s pharmacy.

Posted on August 9, 2016 by  Fraser Ratchford

In a previous installment of this blog series, we covered considerations for hosting your own innovation challenge. But to stage an effective challenge, you must understand what will motivate your target audience to participate. After all, their contributions are what will make your challenge successful. To help you understand these motivating factors better, we’ve distilled some of the knowledge we’ve gained by running 10 challenges with over 250 participating teams into the infographic below.

Posted on August 03, 2016 by Michael Green

We chose “A Conversation about Digital Health” as the theme for Infoway’s 2015-2016 Annual Report because we think there has been a significant shift over the past few years in the quality of the conversations between clinicians, and between clinicians and their patients.

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Sarah Dinsdale

I had classes on how to type properly with a keyboard before I learnt how to write in cursive. I programmed simple web pages before I knew how to calculate the area of a triangle. And I had spoken with peers on the other side of the world while playing video games online before ever leaving North America.

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Fraser Ratchford

In a previous post , we discussed the numerous reasons you may benefit from running an open innovation challenge. Now that you have your reasons, it’s time to choose the challenge type that will allow you to encourage the kind of innovation you’re looking for.

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Dr. Rashaad Bhyat

A physician colleague of mine recently reflected on the changing nature of his practice, in the years since he started using an electronic medical record (EMR). He noted that an increasing amount of his work as a primary care physician does not actually require the patient to be in his office.

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Fraser Ratchford

The optimal solution to a tough problem can be hard to find. That’s a main advantage of open innovation challenges — they bring a larger set of creative minds to bear, yielding more and better answers. This ability has been used to great effect in many of the challenges Canada Health Infoway has hosted as part of the ImagineNation series.