Posted on October 15, 2019 by Krista Balenko

Canadians with mental health issues are struggling to navigate the health system and often don’t know where to begin, resulting in trips to hospital emergency departments or, sadly, doing nothing at all. There is also still a stigma associated with having a mental illness that makes it difficult for them to reach out for help.

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Michael Green

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It takes just one simple online search to uncover all sorts of dangers and warnings around social media use. From loss of productivity to impairing sleep, there is no lack of research or experts citing the downsides of online communities and digital mediums for communication. One area in particular that has often made media headlines is how social media has been found to affect the mental health of Canadians across the country — especially youth.

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Krista Balenko, Jennifer Conn and Simon Hagens

Over the past decade, Infoway has been investing in telehomecare (also known as remote patient monitoring or RPM) programs in Canada, delivering health services to patients in the comfort of their own home. A provider (typically a nurse or paramedic) has electronic access to the patient’s information for review, interpretation and coaching opportunities to enhance the patient’s self-management abilities. These programs are available across much of the country and have served 31,500 Canadians since 2010. View the previous blog post for more information or videos on telehomecare in general.

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Timothy Luk, Maggie Clark, and Shahab Shahnazari

MaRS Discovery District (MaRS), the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research officially announced the winners of the Healthy Behaviour Data Challenge at Health Datapalooza in Washington D.C. on April 26, 2018.

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Matt Smith

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Now in its 18^th year, the e-Health Conference continues to provide a unique opportunity for attendees to collaborate under one roof with professionals from technical, policy and business backgrounds. Whether you go for the keynote presenters and expert panelists or the receptions and social events, there is no shortage of ways to stay connected with Canada’s digital health leaders.

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Chelsea Burnell, RN BScN

If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be remotely monitoring patients with chronic diseases using smart devices in the comfort of their homes I would never have believed you.

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Linda V

When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like my big sister and one day I discovered that, alas, it was happening. I didn’t get her long black hair, rapier wit or superior intelligence. Instead, I got her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and her prescription for home oxygen. There was one major difference, however. She got homebound and depressed and I got telehomecare and an amazing support system.

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Heather Pezzola

So what is telehomecare and what does it do?

Telehomecare is a remote monitoring system where a patient, with a specific, identified chronic disease is set up in their home with monitoring devices such as an electronic tablet, blood pressure cuff, oximeter and scale. The patient electronically sends their blood pressure, oxygen saturation level, pulse, weight (lumped together, called vital signs), as well as responses to various health questions at a set frequency to a nurse. This information is reviewed by the nurse for significant changes and indications of change in health. The nurse will follow up with the patient with any directions in health care needs and provide routine education on the patient’s chronic disease.

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Timothy Luk and Shahab Shahnazari

Finalists for Phase 1 of the Healthy Behaviour Data Challenge — an initiative designed to find innovative way to identify new data sources and methods for monitoring public health — have been selected. Successful submissions were received from academic and private sector teams from across Canada, with intriguing concepts such as use of home thermostats, smartphone sensors, and social media activity to track and measure indicators of healthy behaviour.

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Timothy Luk and Shahab Shahnazari

Traditionally, public health data are collected at the institutional or local level using a variety of methods including self-reported surveys, telephone interviews or online questionnaires. This information is then transferred to a regional authority before reaching a central, nationwide repository for aggregation and analysis.

Posted on May 30, 2017 by Selina Brudnicki

The world of patient portals and patient engagement is on the verge of transformational change. The change has the potential to transition ‘patients’ from being passive recipients of health care to ‘people’ taking charge and becoming more responsible leaders of their own health.

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Krista Balenko

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In today’s digital age, we get automated reminders for everything... birthdays, meetings, appointments, prompts to take medications, encouragements to take more steps in a day and the list goes on... Most are helpful, some are useful, but I know of a couple that have been quietly contributing to a significant reduction in hospital and emergency department admissions for some high-risk patient populations.

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Justin Noble

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In the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, aspiring millionaires must answer trivia questions to receive a $1 million prize. If they need help, they can reach out to others by phoning a friend or asking the audience.

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Simon Hagens

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in partnership with Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC) has released an important new report: “Unnecessary Care in Canada.”

Posted on April 05, 2017 by Marco Lo

My partners and I started Magenta Health, a family medical clinic in Toronto, as an opportunity to innovate, particularly when it comes to the use of technology to improve patient access, convenience, and 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 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 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 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.