Digital technologies are driving rapid changes in our society.
Consider how technological influences in the past decade have completely reshaped how we carry out our banking, our shopping for holiday items (Cyber Monday, anyone?), and our basic daily communications with one another. Performing these tasks has not only moved online (via the internet), but has shifted, literally into the palm of our hands through smartphone technologies.
As an industry, health care has been slower to adopt digital technologies, but is catching up fast as digitization continues. Unfortunately, Canadians do not yet have widespread access to many ‘consumer health’ technologies that can enhance their involvement in their own healthcare. There are many, complex reasons for this current state, one of which is that physicians have faced numerous challenges relating to availability and support for implementation of these patient-oriented digital health services.
Canada Health Infoway is hoping to improve this situation, in part with investments in patient portal solutions, such as Nova Scotia’s MyHealth PHR and Saskatchewan’s Citizen Health Information Portal.
Infoway aims to highlight and celebrate health care teams who are improving the patient experience by forging ahead and implementing consumer-focused digital technologies through the LEADing Practice Challenge.
By highlighting best practices using these technologies, clinician communities may become more aware of what is truly possible more readily. Are you leading the way with patient-focused digital health? Let us know about your story by entering our ImagineNation LEADing Practice Challenge.
About Dr. Rashaad Bhyat
Dr. Rashaad Bhyat is a Physician Leader in the Clinical Adoption group at Canada Health Infoway. He is a family physician with a special interest in Digital Health. He currently practices in an EMR-enabled family practice in the Greater Toronto Area.