Question Period Note: HEALTH DATA AND DIGITAL HEALTH

• The Government of Canada recognizes the potential for Canada to leverage digital health tools and data to improve health care and outcomes for Canadians.
• While there are some pockets of success across the country, the pandemic reinforced our country’s long-standing challenges in being able to access and share timely data across the health system, due in part to lack of consistent standards and approaches for sharing data.
• Building on what we learned during the pandemic, the Government is committed to collaborating with provincial and territorial governments to build the foundations needed to better use, access and share health data.

• The Government has heard loud and clear that the time has long arrived to transform Canadian health care through digitally enabled and world-class health data systems.
• Change is needed to ensure that Canadians can access their health information in a meaningful digital format.
• A world-class health data and digital health system would support equitable access to health services, while driving innovation and helping to address health care challenges across the entire health system.
• Going forward, we will continue to work with provinces and territories to improve data collection across health systems to inform future decisions and get the best possible results, while engaging Canadians to inform our approaches.

IF PRESSED ON DATA PRIVACY AND SECURITY …
• Canadians expect that their personal health information will be adequately protected when used and exchanged.
- Privacy protection remains key considerations in advancing digital health and health data initiatives.
• The federal government is considering optimal approaches for engaging directly with Canadians on their views and preferences for advancing digital health and health data.

IF PRESSED ON EQUITABLE ACCESS TO CARE …

• The Government of Canada is committed to promoting effective and appropriate ways to use digital health services and health data to meet the needs of marginalized populations in Canada.
• Through public engagement and other targeted mechanisms, Indigenous leaders and organizations will be consulted to ensure their specific viewpoints, cultural sensitivities, autonomy, and rights of their communities, are respected and upheld.
• The federal government recognizes the importance of ensuring both the public and the health workforce have the necessary digital and data literacy needed to effectively use digital tools.
• The federal government will collaborate with the provinces and territories on approaches to data and digital literacy to ensure all Canadians stand to benefit from digital health.

Since the onset of the pandemic there has been ongoing federal, provincial, and territorial (FPT) collaboration in digital health that has been supported by notable virtual care investments by the Government of Canada in May 2020. On May 3, 2020, the Prime Minister announced $240.5M to support virtual care and digital tools for Canadians.

Of this, funding of $150M is flowing to provinces and territories through bilateral agreements for enhancements to virtual services focused on secure messaging and file transfer, secure videoconferencing, remote patient monitoring, patient online access to test results, and back-end supports to integrate these tools within existing digital systems. In addition, Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) received $50M to develop pan-Canadian standards on secure messaging and videoconferencing and support Provinces and Territories as they implement new initiatives pursuant to the bilateral agreements. To date, Infoway has led consultations on standards with all jurisdictions, with a view of identifying key priorities and informing the standards development process. Health Canada is also working with provinces and territories to identify where support is needed most on virtual care and supporting infrastructure. As part of this work, Health Canada is supporting key organizations (Infoway, the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI), Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology in Health (CADTH), Centre for Digital Health Evaluation) to provide insight on the implementation of virtual care.

Building on these efforts, FPT governments have continued to build on the initial momentum of digital health and virtual care during the pandemic, consistently promoting the spread and adoption of pan-Canadian virtual care and digital health approaches that can support the Canadian health systems. In June 2021, a FPT Virtual Care and Digital Health Table hosted a multi-stakeholder Virtual Care Summit to discuss the policy enablers underpinning virtual care and digital health, and identify key considerations for a pan-Canadian action plan to maintain the unprecedented momentum spurred by the pandemic in the delivery of virtual care services. This helped inform an FPT forward path for sustainable virtual care delivery and digital health, including a focus on interoperability and data access and sharing across health systems.

In addition, FPT collaboration specifically focused on enhancing health data has also taken place. In July 2020, responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government announced the Safe Restart Act (SRA), which among many other things, articulated the need for better health data management in Canada. In this regard, a time-limited federal, provincial, and territorial table was formed to guide the development of a pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy, which is being informed by the reports and targeted recommendations of an Expert Advisory Group (EAG). The third and final EAG report was released in May 2022, building on the first and second reports to provide both aspirational and pragmatic advice for developing a world-class, person-centered health data system. The final report reaches several conclusions that highlight a need for a collaborative culture, public trust, and significant FPT investment to support needed improvements in health data policies, interoperability, and literacy.

Going forward, Budget 2022 commits to working with provinces and territories on strategies to better use health data to support health care system improvements and Canadians’ access to their personal health records. It also speaks to the importance of increasing virtual care for all Canadians. Further, Budget 2022 provided funding for initiatives that have the potential to spur innovation in the digital health sector, such as the $30 million investment over four years, starting in 2022-23, to build upon the success of the Coordinated Accessible National (CAN) Health Network and expand it nationally to Quebec, the territories, and Indigenous communities.The CAN Health Network brings together hospital networks and health authorities in nine provinces to procure innovative health care solutions, including investing in made-in Canada technologies.

KEY FACTS
• Canada lags behind when it comes to enabling citizens’ access and control of their own electronic health information.
- Today, only 32% of surveyed Canadians report ever electronically accessing their personal health information, despite 79% of the same Canadians reporting that they want access to be provided.
- On top of that, with only 34% of Canadian primary care physicians able to electronically exchange patient information outside of their practice, health care providers are left with incomplete information about their patients’ medical history, creating risks of discontinuous care and risks to patient safety.
• The pandemic revealed just how critical timely data is, with crucial public health decisions being made on uncoordinated and incomplete COVID-19 case information.
• The 2021 Mandate letter included a clear commitment to expedite work in consultation with provinces and territories and a broad range of partners to create a world-class health data system that is timely, usable, open-by-default, connected and comprehensive.