IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The EHR Viewer is a secure website developed for Saskatchewan health care providers to give access to patient information regardless of where an individual goes for care or where they live in the province.

“The work doesn’t end after today,” said Health Minister Dustin Duncan.

“It’s an important day for us to take some time to recognize and celebrate all the hard work that’s been underway over a number of years.”

E-government uses the Internet to deliver services for citizens more conveniently and efficiently. We choose to use e-services because they take only minutes to complete and save us a trip to a government office. Among the “popular” ones is online payment for parking tickets.

To find out, eHealth Saskatchewan will begin a public engagement campaign when it launches its website: www.ehealth-sk.ca on July 30.

The public will have until Aug. 31 to participate in a short online survey that will ask questions such as, "Who do you believe should have access to your electronic health record?" and "What type of services related to your electronic health record are important to you?"

This week's government announcement that a "comprehensive" electronic health record for Saskatchewan residents "is complete" was a little misleading. It suggests to the casual observer that all family physicians and other healthcare providers now have computer access to a patient's complete medical history.

In a news release issued Wednesday, Susan Antosh, CEO of eHealth Saskatchewan, said the Crown corporation is "committed to ensuring there will be a seamless transition with a continued focus on customer service," adding "eHealth is well-suited to incorporate health registration because of our robust privacy and security safeguards for personal health information." The transfer is expected to take effect in early November.

On Monday, the issue and renewal of provincial health cards joins vital statistics as a public service for residents of Saskatchewan. This follows the transfer of health cards from the Ministry of Health to eHealth Saskatchewan that occurred in early January.

eHealth Saskatchewan is asking people to participate in a survey on their website.

"This survey will help us determine what's important to Saskatchewan residents and if they even desire things like access to their own medical test results, for example," said Susan Antosh, eHealth Saskatchewan CEO, in a press release.

The new city website project wants to put the customer in the middle, according to city manager Murray Totland.

“It’s about making sure it’s successful in a variety of platforms particularly mobile devices,” Totland said. “Whatever we can do to make sure our customer can easily access our website … and hopefully use it beyond just getting information from the city.”

Telehealth equipment was purchased for the clinic by EHealth – the Ministry of Health’s technology services – as part of a trial case. Four other locations in the province also received the equipment to increase patient and provider uptake of virtual clinics in a new setting.

Sunset Haven in Carnduff is the latest to join the Telehealth network.

Using the services of a doctor, psychiatrist, or other specialist through Telehealth saves patients and clients thousands of dollars in travel costs every year, and eliminates hours of inconvenience. Telehealth uses information technology to link patients to health care from a distance.

Although the Government has claimed the new agency would save between $100 million ($A98.4 million) and $200 ($A196.8) million annually, the Ministry of Public Works, which assumed responsibility for the new Agency, could not say how this would be achieved.

In addition, the launch of Shared Services Canada caught Public Service unions off guard.

Ms. Forand made the observation at GTEC, the annual Government Technology Exhibition Conference, held at the Ottawa Convention Centre. The event brings together some of the country’s top technology firms and their public-sector clients.

“I remember being up here on this podium over a year ago,” Ms. Forand said during a keynote speech on Wednesday morning. “We were brand new, we hadn’t finished the transition of staff, and we threw up a booth. It was orange. We attracted a lot of people to our booth.”

The federal government won't be creating a new agency to buy electronic hardware for federal workers, electing instead to give the job to the IT super-agency it officially created last year.

Government documents posted online Wednesday show that the Conservatives have given Shared Services Canada the mandate to buy end-user hardware and software for workers in the 43 federal agencies it serves, along with a handful of parliamentary watchdogs and other federal agencies. In all, Shared Services Canada will be in charge of buying end-user devices such as laptops and mobile devices, and software, including security software, for 106 federal organizations.

SSC – the newly formed federal agency tasked with consolidating the government’s IT portfolio – now has the authority to procure hardware and software to 106 federal departments and agencies.

“(This initiative) is part of the government’s overall strategy to achieve better value for money with respect to IT and builds on SSC’s mandate to modernize and transform the government’s email systems, data centres and networks,” SSC executives stated in a release issued April 9.

Will Sidewalk Labs be kicked to the curb in Toronto? Dave Lewis takes a closer look at the controversies surrounding the Google-backed initiative

Smart cities are all the rage these days. From Singapore, Dubai, and Toronto, these so-called digital utopias are catching all of the headlines.

One such project in Toronto, Canada, has been faced with pushback. The smart city initiative, run by Sidewalk Labs and backed by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has been generating a lot of concern here in Canada from a privacy perspective.

The former privacy commissioner of Ontario recently resigned from a project to create a smart city in Toronto because there are no guarantees the collection of personal data would be kept private. Privacy is fundamental to freedom, says Ann Cavoukian, and smart cities being created around the world are not doing enough to guarantee it.

‘No opportunity to revoke consent’

A $400-million effort to consolidate 63 federal government email systems into one is not only running at least 18 months late, but was plagued by early confusion over what was to be included and questions about how the winner was selected.

The “Email Transformation Initiative” run by Shared Services Canada was meant to showcase the Conservative government’s ability to manage complex projects and help it streamline the bureaucracy. Instead, it quickly ran into problems.

University of Lethbridge political science professor Harold Jansen wanted to uncover what the impact the Internet has on democratic citizenship. He collaborated with four professors from the Universities of Montreal, Laval, Manitoba and Guelph. They conducted a telephone survey of 2,021 individuals across Canada between February and April, through the Institute for Social Research at York University.

"Showing patients the information without interpretation does have risks of confusing patients and increasing anxiety," said Alexander Krist, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond who has studied the value of giving patients access to their health records.

"And showing patients information before their doctors have had a chance to explain it to them can also be problematic."