IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

A new peer-to-peer network has been created across the province to assist health professionals who are learning to use the e-health technology.

The electronic health records need to be available everywhere from a clinic in a small northern community to a hospital in a major urban centre and everywhere in between.

If you live in a remote northern community and your child has a worrisome fever, it can be a long, expensive trip just to get him checked out.

E-health is a "term that now seems to serve as a general buzzword to characterize not only Internet medicine; but virtually everything related to computers and medicine," according to the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Niagara residents will now be able to book and pay for online government services or education services and submit requests at their convenience. Residents in Port Colborne and Fort Erie have had these features available to them since 2006, however an updated system will be rolled out that will eventually include other municipalities in the Niagara region, such as Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Welland, Thorold, Wainfleet, Pelham, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Grimsby. Included in the new system are the four major education sector partners as well.

"For us, SOA is more a re-branding of an approach we've had in play since about 1999," says Ron Huxter, chief technology officer. "We referred to it then as a common components approach."

Electronic service delivery, for years the most pressing issue for the federal public sector, is not the priority it once was.

That is the finding of a recent joint IDC/TIG study of public sector IT spending in 2005, which indicates subtle shifts in the way government sees the role of IT.

Two years after the province embarked on the project to deliver broadband service across Alberta, SuperNet is surrounded in controversy and the anticipated advantages are unrealized, the report by the Alberta Council of Technologies claims.

Public agencies have SuperNet access, but the rest of the communities lag behind, the report says.

St. Joseph's Hospital/Foyer D'Youville went live with telehealth services — a two-way video-conferencing — on Monday.

"At the moment, it's mostly educational services for staff, but we plan on having public sessions down the road and physician referrals will happen in the future," said John Kelly, the hospital's CEO. "It depends on how the province moves the capacity of the system."

In a report released Thursday, the Montreal Economic Institute says several studies in the last few years have shown telemedicine can significantly reduce costs, increase health-care service efficiency and boost patients' well-being because they spend less time travelling to and from clinics and hospitals and waiting around to see a nurse or a doctor.

Telus is launching the first national program that would allow doctors and patients to share medical records in a web-based world.

The Telus Health Space Project is supported by the Canadian Diabetes Association and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

The systems are an Interoperable Electronic Health Record, a Client Registry, a Provider Registry and a Provincial Diagnostic Imaging Repository.

"These systems are key building blocks along the journey to a complete electronic health record that will ultimately link all patient information from across the health care system - from hospitals, from your family doctor, from your local pharmacy and elsewhere," Murphy said. "With this information, authorized health care providers will have access to individuals' health records to provide them with the care they need, when they need it."

“I have always said Ottawa is a leader in e-technology and I am pleased that staff are continuously finding ways to use technology to better serve residents and enterprise,” said Mayor O’Brien. “It’s clear from Web metrics and feedback that the City’s e-media and IT staff are getting it right. The GTEC Distinction Awards nominations are affirmation from our peers in all three levels of government.“

Doctors and nurses on the Island are the first in B.C. to have the ability to instantly access a patient's medical history, including hospital visits and prescriptions, through an electronic health-records system that, after a year of being in use, is saving time and money, and improving care.

In fact the city has been short listed as one of the world's smartest cities by a New York-based think-tank that focuses on economic development in the broadband economy.

The Intelligent Community Forum lauds the city's highly-skilled workforce, its burgeoning technology sector and broadband initiatives ranging from e-government in Victoria to wireless connectivity in the city.

The council, an independent body created by federal and provincial governments to monitor the health system, released a report Monday that warns family doctors are facing increasingly complex demands but often lack the proper guidance to make the best decisions for patients.

Instead of an electronic system, we keep putting pen to paper and putting patients' lives at risk.

Competent and well-trained health-care workers are essential, but so is complete, timely information. Something we don't have.