Identifying Health as a Key Player in the Digital Economy

Use of digital solutions and connectivity is growing rapidly in the health sector. Essential services increasingly depend on digital systems and these systems are becoming an increasingly significant part of the country’s critical infrastructure. The more we rely on these digital solutions, the more vulnerable we become if they should fail. The number, significance, and complexity of cyberattacks is increasing, with important implications for Canada’s health sector. This trend reinforces the rising importance of cybersecurity to the resilience of our critical infrastructure.

our clarion call

Digital health solutions will improve access to care for Canadians, find cures and treatments for diseases, and increase the efficiency of the health care system as a whole. Further investments in the area of digital health and health data cannot be postponed.

action needed

For Canada’s health system to take advantage of the ongoing progress in the field of big data analytics, HealthCareCAN strongly encourages the federal government to:

Substantially invest over five years through Canada’s research hospitals and academic health sciences centres in order to develop meaningful digital health data platforms and applications;
Work with industry, legislators, privacy commissioners, clinicians and patients;
Undertake evaluation of their clinical benefits, and advance their use through the rest of the health system.

Benefits of investing in digital health

Cost Savings

Better use of data and analytics could save the health system $10 billion a year

Increased productivity

Digital health systems could act as a catalyst, boosting productivity by up to $408 million

Improved health

Treatments have been radically improved as a result of adopting digital technologies

Our Submission to Finance Canada

Digital Health And Data Platforms

An Opportunity For Canadian Excellence In Evidence-Based Health Research

Rapid growth in the volume, speed of transmission, and variety of data, otherwise known as ‘big data’, challenges traditional approaches to data storage, management, and analysis. As the sharing and variety of health data continues to expand, insights that could change care for individuals, groups and even society as a whole are buried in these data.