National Health Innovation Working Group

About the Working Group 

Our National Health Innovation Working Group is mandated:

• To support health innovation, from inception to adoption from ideation to implementation and from conception to completion, without losing sight of patient data privacy and protection.
• To focus on the analysis, advice and insights on innovation, transformation, modernization and forward-looking strategies.
• To advocate the development of sound policies that support the adoption of health innovation on the basis of a value-based approach.

Healthcare is at an exciting juncture right now, providing a magnitude of opportunities for innovation and change, and thereby, improved patient care, productivity and efficiencies. With increased high speed internet connectivity and robust digital infrastructure — two services that are essential to all Canadians — data analytics, cloud computing, mobile tools, open APIs, apps, and so much patient data being generated and opened up to developers, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about how health systems can use technology to fix a model that is beyond outdated and still relies on the fax machine as its main communication tool. 

Let’s think about virtual healthcare in this context for a moment. Canada has a growing aging population with more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. In some rural communities, citizens don’t have regular, direct access to a general practitioner, which is why revolutionizing access to health care via virtual means is critical to Canada’s overall well-being. In addition to the time-saving benefit, safety aspect and undeniable convenience of using healthcare services remotely from your home, digitally accessible services also create a better carbon footprint.