Posted on October 6, 2020 by Joel Francis

Whether you’re a physician sending diagnostic imaging across the country or a patient checking lab results on a smartphone, it’s essential that different health information systems and devices can talk to each other. This mutually intelligible flow of information between systems is interoperability, and it is essential to effective digital health, especially in Canada, where different provinces and territories look after their own systems.

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Dr. Rashaad Bhyat

Physical distancing, social circles, contact tracing, R0 numbers…over the past few months, we’ve adapted quickly to a wide range of new terms and concepts in order to stay healthy. For many Canadians, this information is largely new, the COVID-19 pandemic thus highlighting the importance of health literacy.

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Anne Baldwin 

Archimedes said it best: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. For physician Dr. Jeffrey Steed, this is all too true when it comes to prescribing. Based in Coaldale, AB, his clinic was looking for more efficient ways to get prescriptions to pharmacies.

Posted on September 24 by Dr. Steven Reynolds

I’ve been a practising physician for 10 years and, as a clinician, I’ve always understood the importance of giving patients access to their health information. A recent experience helped me see things from the patient’s point of view, making me even more convinced that we have to break down the barriers that block access.

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Bobby Gheorghiu & Chad Leaver

In our previous post we highlighted a leading insight from the 2018 Canadian Physician Survey where 92 per cent of family physicians who use six to nine EMR functionalities stated that they ‘provide more efficient health care with electronic records.’ It has been a general assumption that physicians will integrate advanced EMR functionalities to support patient care as their years of experience using an EMR increases. Beyond just improving practice efficiencies, evidence has also highlighted clinician, patient and system value of using multiple EMR functionalities to support patient care, suggesting that advancing meaningful EMR use is a key catalyst to realizing value-based outcomes.

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Bobby Gheorghiu & Chad Leaver

Physicians are extremely busy. That’s why it’s important to identify solutions that can increase efficiency. One such solution is meaningful use of electronic medical records (EMR) — physicians that use more advanced functionalities in their EMR report greater efficiencies.

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Linda Monico

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On February 16, Canada joins the Regenstrief Institute in celebrating 25 years of LOINC®. It’s an unprecedented success in pursuing laboratory and clinical data exchange, and though you may not know it, you’re benefiting from LOINC.

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Artem Safarov

As the health care needs of Canadian families evolve, structures providing care, such as primary care, must evolve accordingly. The Patient`s Medical Home (PMH) is the vision for the future of family practice presented by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). It emphasizes the factors that contribute to patient-centred, continuous, comprehensive, compassionate care that is valued by both patients and providers. After serving as a blueprint for several primary care reforms across Canada, the vision is being updated in 2019 to remain relevant and account for the latest evidence available.

Posted on November 9, 2018 by Derek Ritz

In my digital health work here in Canada and around the world, I regularly hear the ill-framed, but nonetheless pertinent question, “With the rising popularity of FHIR, what is the role for IHE?” This question is pertinent because of how much hype currently surrounds the FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) initiative.

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Andrea MacLean

For as long as I have been working in health care, I have been hearing, reading and/or discussing the need for disparate IT and health care solutions to talk to each other — to communicate and share information.

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Sukirtha Tharmalingam

What does connected health information mean to you? For me, it means that when I show up at my upcoming medical appointment with my midwife who is managing my pregnancy, she can see my latest lab test results to make sure my iron and glucose levels are in check. She can also see that I’ve recently had a wrist injury and had an ultrasound done. The ultrasound, ordered by my family doctor was conducted in a private lab. Results were sent back to my family doctor, who referred me to a sports medicine specialist for diagnosis and treatment. That is my health information connected.

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Jeff Green

There are many new and exciting initiatives underway at Infoway including PrescribeIT^TM, Canada’s national e-prescribing solution, which has made incredible progress in the past 18 months.

Posted on November 03, 2017 by Chad Leaver

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Six years ago when I began my role at Infoway, adoption of electronic medial records among primary care practices in Canada was at 56 per cent. In the next two years, through partnerships and collaboration we established a growing body of evidence supporting the value of EMR use in primary care and released a national study in 2013 estimating the emerging value of EMR use in community-based care at $1.3 billion.

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 May 17, 2016 by Chad Leaver

When you visit a specialist at a hospital clinic for the day, you’re probably there because you received a referral from your family doctor. Or, perhaps you are following up from a recent in-hospital stay, or receiving ongoing care or treatment for a health condition. Maybe, like so many Canadians, you’re helping a family member or friend to get to — and from — appointments. Whatever the reason, you know that a visit to the specialist is an important part of supporting your health care needs and contributes critical information to your health care journey.

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Dennis Giokas

A lot has changed since the initial blog post on this topic five years ago. The nature of the systems supporting clinicians and patients has matured significantly. For example, many now have advanced functionality beyond simple record keeping and some have patient-centred functions. In addition, the scope of these systems now covers a broader user base – one beyond their original users. The description of these digital health solutions has become quite complex, especially when we consider users, care settings, the data, functionality and technology.

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Shelagh Maloney

With some vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles making a resurgence, quick and easy access to immunization records is more important than ever before. Digital health offers public health officials the ability to pull records quickly and provides parents the peace of mind of knowing their children’s records are easily accessible.

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Mark Nenadovic

Before I took on a new role as the Group Director for Infoway’s Certification Services program, Infoway had partnered with the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) to conduct a joint review of digital health certification services in Canada.

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Bobby Gheorghiu

From system efficiencies, to enhanced care, the shift from film-based medical images to digital ones has been an unqualified success across the country with significant benefits realized for radiologists, patients and the health system overall.