eHealth coming to Canada

Written by Michael Martineau

New technology will improve the delivery of healthcare.

When asked to conjure an image of the typical physician, most people will describe a person wearing a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around their neck and a chart in their hands. This simple image neatly captures three key activities performed by the doctor, namely, the collection of data (using instruments such as the stethoscope), the recording of information (usually onto a paper chart) and the analysis of the information (using the doctor’s training and experience) to make a diagnosis.

Unfortunately, as healthcare grows ever more complex, the information needed to diagnose a patient’s condition is increasingly scattered across a myriad of different systems, some of which are electronic, many of which are still paper-based.

eHealth, the application of information and communications technology to improve healthcare services delivery, offers the promise of simplifying this complex situation so that a healthcare provider can quickly and easily retrieve all information about a specific patient, perhaps even on a device that mimics the traditional paper chart.

Why is eHealth important?

A 1999 Institute of Medicine report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” concluded that preventable hospital-based medical errors are the eighth-leading cause of death in the United Stated. An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors such as incorrect medication administration, the equivalent to one passenger jet crashing and killing all occupants each and every day of the year. A similar situation exists in Canada.

In addition to an alarming incidence of preventable deaths, the cost of providing healthcare in Canada has been increasing, on average, six per cent per year. Assuming no significant change to the underlying factors driving healthcare costs, the Conference Board of Canada predicts that by 2020 some provinces might be spending more than half of their annual operating budgets on healthcare services delivery.

Faced with a need to protect patient safety as well as to increase productivity as a partial means of addressing rising costs, healthcare, like other industries, is turning to Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Although ICT has been used for decades in hospitals, it has largely been employed in “back-office” applications, with front-line healthcare providers relying on pen and paper. By integrating ICT into front-line healthcare service delivery processes, eHealth can help reduce medical errors by making health information more readily accessible. Further, eHealth can reduce costs by saving time, reducing duplication and improving efficiency, savings that can reduce healthcare costs by as much as 10%.

Canadian eHealth trends

While every Canadian citizen has access to publicly funded healthcare, the manner in which the healthcare system is structured, funded and governed varies from province to province. This situation can best be described as “variations on a theme” and it extends to eHealth, with every province setting its own priorities and timetable for eHealth adoption.

Notwithstanding the provincial variations, several major healthcare trends are emerging that have a direct impact on eHealth adoption:

• the consolidation of healthcare services delivery, either through hospital amalgamation or regionalization.
• the vertical integration of healthcare services delivery across the continuum of care primarily through regionalization.
• third-party provisioning of eHealth service through various mechanisms including outsourcing, shared service organizations and partnering between several healthcare organizations.
• strong senior-level support for eHealth within healthcare organizations, regional health authorities and provincial ministries of health.
• alignment of provincial eHealth agendas with priorities set by Canada Health Infoway, a federal organization created to foster and accelerate the development of pan-Canadian electronic health information systems.

Modern Processes

Effective healthcare service delivery is heavily dependent upon timely access to relevant patient information. Existing manual, paper-based processes simply cannot keep pace with the explosion of information and ever more complex diagnostic and treatment options. eHealth will provide patients and healthcare providers alike with the tools needed to easily and quickly access the information needed to make timely and effective decisions, thereby increasing patient safety and improving overall healthcare system efficiency.

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