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Canada: Healthcare delivery changing with technology

Patient Safety Monitor: Global Edition, March 17, 2009

The way in which patients and healthcare providers communicate will be revolutionized by the use of the Internet and cell phones. In Canada, programs like MyChart, eHealth Ontario, mHealth, mydocter.ca, and ePrescribing are just a few ways that patients and health care providers can exchange medical information, reports The Star.

"The modernization of healthcare means using technology to improve the way healthcare is delivered," Sarah Kramer, CEO of eHealth Ontario told The Star. For example, this modernization means a doctor can be alerted if out to dinner if glucose levels of one of his or her patients, who is being monitored electronically, has exceeded normal levels.

MyChart, one of the new technologies, is an electronic system where personal care records are stored. They can be accessed, with permission from the patient, by a medical team, caregivers, as well as parents and adult children of any elderly patient from anywhere in the world.

Jerry Zeidenberg, editor and publisher of the Canadian Healthcare Technology told The Star that he believes all healthcare facilities, pharmacies, and physicians' offices will eventually be linked electronically and that patients will be able to access their records, enter data, and monitor their care wirelessly. Zeidenberg hopes that with the $2.1 billion investment, there will be "a huge thrust" in the right direction for eHealth Ontario.

To read more, click here.

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