Rapid Response to COVID-19
Overview
After the global pandemic was declared, Infoway began working with Health Canada and the provinces and territories to quickly develop and expand virtual care solutions across Canada. This helped to keep patients, clinicians, clinic staff and their families safe by reducing the potential for exposure to the COVID-19 virus.
Mobilizing
Virtual Care
To accelerate this shift to virtual care, Infoway reallocated existing funds to create a Rapid Adoption of Virtual Care Fund. In collaboration with the provinces and territories, Infoway invested in 17 projects across all jurisdictions in four focus areas: virtual visits, e-mental health, remote patient monitoring and access to COVID-19 test results. With unprecedented collaboration from Health Canada and all jurisdictions, all projects were operational within 30 days of approval.
Results
As of March 31, 2021, 3.5 million Canadians (almost triple our target) and more than 91,000 healthcare providers (exceeding our target) had logged more than five million uses of virtual care solutions because of these investment projects.
Our Rapid Adoption of Virtual Care Fund and the projects we invested in, advanced the use of virtual care technologies and provided vital support to Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Provinces and territories were able to modernize their existing virtual care tools while expanding their service offerings to meet the needs of their citizens.