Canada has spent billions on health-care software that does not even communicate province to province. Free and open-source software would be a technically superior and far less expensive option.
The shortage of family doctors affects not only patients, but the entire health-care system. A strong primary care foundation increases average lifespan, improves overall health and reduces costs.
Yu Chen, Binghamton University, State University of New York
There are many uses for digital systems that are not centrally controlled and that allow large numbers of people to participate securely, even if they don’t all know and trust each other.
In health care crises, researchers can avoid waiting for clinical trial results by using data from health care systems to analyze the effectiveness of treatments for COVID-19 and other illnesses.
With outdated delivery systems at many hospitals and clinics, mistakes can lead to costly duplication of services and poor patient outcomes. But there are ways to fix the current system.
Digital health can improve care, but in Ontario, health data are still fragmented, despite billions of dollars spent over the last two decades to enable fast and secure exchange of health information.
The digitization of health care in Canada has been a bumpy ride — due to lack of focus on governance, and lack of emphasis on interoperability, transparency and accountability.
Past upgrades to the state’s medical record system have cost tremendous amounts of money, and on at least one occasion, forced clinicians to revert to paper-based methods.
Doctor depression, burnout and suicide have been rising for some time, and overwork was considered the norm. A health care lawyer explains why the legal and regulatory systems must intervene.
The Conversation published a story earlier today that was incorrect. The story, titled “We have less than three months to opt out before the My Health Record system has our details, and no-one told us…
Will nurses eventually be replaced by robots? Nurses themselves need to engage with the ongoing technological revolution in healthcare - to shape the future of the profession.
Most people know they can donate their organs after they pass away. But what about their medical data? For National Donor Day, we suggest countries create national databases of data donors.
Although there are significant challenges to making data within My Health Record useful in the management of a person’s health, the move to make it more open is positive.
Despite A$485 million of rescue funding, there is no guarantee health professionals will participate in the e-health scheme, nor that the information supplied will be complete.
As the UK government wrangles with the sticky problem of how to make health records useful for research without compromising privacy, it might look to how Google has evolved for inspiration. Google was…
The recently released Commission of Audit report recommends that the Australian government needs to become “digital by default”. The continued shift to digital service delivery is intended to reduce costs…