Blog: Infoway Connects

Posted on December 5 by Alan Leung

Reflecting on the Infoway Partnership Conference last month, the major themes were collaboration and interoperability. There was also a reminder from a number of speakers to design software or standards in an environment where feedback is actively incorporated and a real-world problem is being solved. It was a great conference for me — I was able to finally meet with many people I've worked with virtually over conference calls. The impromptu conversations also may lead to valuable outcomes. I was impressed by the knowledge and skill of the moderators to prompt discussion and summarize the proceedings.

Posted on November 29, 2016 by  Shelagh Maloney

Thanks to all who participated in Digital Health Week (Nov. 14-20)! The event was very successful in sparking conversations with Canadians about how digital health is empowering them in moving from patients to partners in their care. Collectively we generated over 4,800 tweets that garnered over 23.8 million impressions! Several themes emerged from these conversations. The two that resonated most with me are 1) the importance of including patients in the design of digital health solutions and 2) the ability of digital health to transform the delivery of care.

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Cindy Hollister

With Christmas just around the corner you might wonder, why with great glee, I’ve marked December 15 as “the special day” in my calendar. My eager anticipation of this date actually started on November 8, the launch of the Infoway 2016 LEADing Practice Challenge.

Posted on November 16 by Gilles Leclerc

Will information technology transform healthcare? Like most of you I believe that, without a doubt, it will. Digital records, e-prescribing, connected devices, mobile apps, robotics, telehealth, and artificial intelligence are just a few examples of ongoing changes in health care across the country. But, as the health care system continues its inescapable digital mutation, it may be surprising that up to now limited focus has been put on e-health student education and training in our universities.

Posted on November 15 by Christopher Louizos

I was asked to write a blog regarding the integration of the informatics e-resource for pharmacy students into our curriculum at the University of Manitoba, College of Pharmacy. I found this an interesting task, as this is my first blog post and honestly had never truly reflected on why our curriculum integration was considered a success. I would attribute it to four things:

Posted on November 15 by Lisa Bishop

In this modern, technology-enabled world, how do we encourage the next generation of pharmacists to embrace technology? Although this generation of students has grown up in a digital environment, they aren’t necessarily tech savvy when it comes to providing health care. From adherence reminders, to electronic refills, to viewing clinical information, pharmacists can provide an enhanced level of service to their patients, all with the aid of technology.

Posted on November 14, 2016 by  Shelagh Maloney

Date: Friday, November 18, 2016
Time: 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET
Where: Twitter at #ThinkDigitalHealth

Posted on November 14, 2016 by  Fraser Ratchford

After five years of ImagineNation Challenges, there has been a lot of learning, connecting, and sharing — all of it in the pursuit of improving health and health care in Canada.

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.