IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The initiative, called Apps4Ottawa, is funded from a group called Open Data, which represents the city governments of Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto. The group was formed to find innovative ways of sharing city data.

“By making this information available on the website, we have lowered our delivery costs and increased its availability to everyone,” said Mayor Doug McCallum on behalf of Council. “COSMOS is a good example of how we can use technology to increase our level of service to our residents and business community.”

Family doctors are overprescribing medications and tests, such as expensive CT and MRI scans, according to a study released Monday by the Health Council of Canada. Besides driving up costs in an already unmanageable provincial health budget, these practices are harming patients by exposing them to potentially serious drug side effects and unnecessary radiation.

Telus health space will provide patients and their families with access to their health information in an encrypted online environment, the company and a Toronto hospital said Monday.

The idea is to use Telus health space and its e-health record system, called My Chart, to securely move health information from home, the clinic, hospital or elsewhere to the consumer's fingertips.

Getting Canada on track to make electronic health and medical records more efficient has had its ups and downs, but to date, there are nearly 300 projects under way, which have already helped save money, speed up some processes and improve care.

It's been about nine years since efforts to get each Canadian's health and medical profile in digital format got a boost with the creation of Canada Health Infoway and $500-million in initial federal funding to invest in electronic health record (EHR) projects with the provinces and territories, which also support their own eHealth work.

According to a published report, the Ontario government has established a hotline that will link up residents with an MD in their area.

Around 500,000 people in the province are without a family physician, forcing emergency rooms to deal with problems that may not be emergencies and leading to overcrowded walk-in clinics.

The success of an e-government project hinges on solving a problem rather than throwing technology at it, according to professionals working in Ontario.

There are 445 municipalities in the province and only seven per cent of them have populations over 100,000. "The municipalities are not a monolithic group with the same needs and challenges," said Craig Wellington, manager of communications and marketing, Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO).

Drug information systems, which are hooked up now mainly in the western provinces and Prince Edward Island and to a lesser extent elsewhere, allow pharmacists and health-care providers to electronically access records of a patient's prescription medications.

And they provide a full and accurate medication history so that potential drug interactions or allergies can be caught before they happen.

E-health is the pairing of health-care initiatives with information and communications technology. Many aspects of health care and the health-care system have benefited from the integration of information and communications technology. We see it in small and large initiatives and in public and home-based health care.

The route to egovernment success is to get inside the head of the citizen or business using the service, according to the former chief information officer of the successful Canadian government programme.

The Program for eHealth Innovation was founded in 2000 by the University Health Network (UHN) and the University of Toronto. The idea was to bring together some of the best innovators, technology and research facilities to create an environment where, according to the mission statement, they could "achieve the highest possible levels of health, and help health systems make the most efficient use of available resources."

"As eHealth Ontario takes on more of its own leadership, they will be taking more of that work on inhouse," Caplan said.

"What I've said to the board... is we must deliver value for taxpayers. It's my expectation that money will be spent wisely and well and that we'll be able to demonstrate results for what it is we're investing in."

Drug-information systems, which are part of electronic health records, allow pharmacists and health-care providers to electronically and securely access records of a patient’s prescription medications. The system, which Canada Health Infoway is under mandate to standardize across the country, also provides a full and precise medication history helping to prevent potential or harmful interactions that might occur.

Most other industries would soon automate in similar ways and later make their services available online, meaning Canadians today can use their home computer -- or even their cellphone -- to do everything from book a vacation to download a song to find a date.

As the Internet has enabled consumers to manage important aspects of their personal lives from the relative comfort of their home, it is no surprise that Canadians are becoming increasingly intrigued by the prospect of being able to view and manage their health information using emerging personal health records (PHR) technologies.

A project conducted by the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital is developing hand-held technology to enhance the safety of at-risk patients. The new technology will augment nurses’ capacity to monitor patient’s vital signs and detect clinical deterioration. The application of an Early Warning Scores algorithm in the software will alert the Critical Care Response Team (CCRT) when patients deteriorate. The CCRT typically consists of an ICU nurse, respiratory therapist (RT) and physician. The team responds around the clock to staff requests to stabilize patients who are deteriorating or at risk of deteriorating.

Canada Health Infoway Inc. had said for years that half the population would have an electronic health record by the end of 2010, and every Canadian would have one by 2016.

But Infoway acknowledged in an audit report from Auditor General Sheila Fraser on Tuesday that the 50 per cent goal won't be reached until sometime in the first half of next year.

The problem is so serious that the RCMP are even warning that the public faces an increased risk of "injury or death" because of outdated information technology that police rely on for their radio systems.

Diane Ablonczy, the secretary of state for small business and tourism, made the announcement Friday morning in Yellowknife.

Ablonczy said broadband internet service is a necessity, not a frill, for the North's remote communities.