Identifying Health as a Key Player in the Digital Economy

COVID-19 update

For information on our activities related to COVID-19, please visit our page Mobilizing to respond to COVID-19

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

Canada’s leaders must prioritize crumbling health infrastructure

Laying a strong foundation for a pan-Canadian approach to health care must start with federal investment in health infrastructure.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed serious weaknesses and gaps in our patchwork Canadian health system. However, the COVID-19 crisis has also given us the unique opportunity to see how best to rebuild our system to better meet current challenges and those sure to come. For the federal government, Wednesday’s Speech from the Throne provides an important opportunity to increase support for health care infrastructure, a move that will have a significant, positive, and long-lasting impact on the health of Canadians.

Time for federal leadership

Healthcare quality and outcomes hindered by access issues

This article reviews perceptions of Canada’s public and health professionals regarding access and quality of healthcare. Principal data sources were 13 sequential Health Care in Canada (HCIC) surveys, from 1998 to 2018. A persistent and growing issue in all regions of the country is concern around timely access to care. This concern about timely access involves all major components of healthcare delivery and is anticipated to worsen. Sub-optimal access continues to undermine quality of care.

Cybersecurity in Health: We’re in this together

As the national voice of Canada’s hospitals and healthcare organizations, HealthCareCAN is partnering with organizations in an effort to create and sustain a dialogue between cybersecurity experts and health leaders, and to cultivate cybersecurity capacity and expertise within Canada’s health sector.

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.