Infoway’s Interoperability Imperative: Laying ground for a unified healthcare future
In 2001, Canada Health Infoway was established by the federal government as an independent non-profit with a mission to promote the adoption and integration of digital technologies within Canada’s varied healthcare systems. Since its inception, the organization has been instrumental in developing electronic health records and telehealth infrastructure such as e-prescribing. Infoway has also been tasked with creating common data standards to be used across systems and jurisdictions to make all of Canada’s various digital health platforms compatible with each other—or ‘interoperable’—this final point has proven to be the most challenging.
Dr. Rashaad Bhyat, Senior Clinical Leader at Canada Health Infoway, provided an inside look at some of the organization’s latest initiatives, including a new grant opportunity available to support real-world interoperability projects in healthcare settings. Bhyat, a family physician with deep expertise in clinical informatics, echoed an oft-repeated quote in e-health circles, “interoperability saves lives,” emphasizing the benefits of interoperability, as well as the grim consequences of a national health ecosystem in which our clinical software platforms aren’t able or even required to talk to each other.
With the recent introduction of Bill C-72, the Connected Care for Canadians Act, digital health may have reached a long-awaited inflection point. The new legislation will compel tech companies to make sure their e-health software is interoperable, tackling longstanding issues of data fragmentation within healthcare, and prohibiting ‘data blocking’ practices that restrict users’ access to their own health information. Reflecting on the bill's impact, Bhyat noted, “There is now some legislative teeth behind what Infoway and others have been striving to accomplish for years.”
A standout initiative under Infoway’s new Centre for Clinical Innovation in Digital Health is the Connected Care Innovation Grant, aimed at supporting interoperability projects across Canada. Bhyat expressed enthusiasm about the overwhelming response to the grant, which he says reflects a pent-up demand for support. He described the grants as “change catalysts," poised to scale up and digitally transform healthcare delivery.
The current round of grant applications is open until July 5th, 2024. Eligible applicants include clinicians, provider groups, and healthcare organizations, though Bhyat mentioned that the selection committee is open to applications from outside these groups, such as startups, if a project is deemed sufficiently valuable and aligns with Infoway’s goals, like enhancing data portability within primary care or innovating around e-referrals and e-consults.
Bhyat elaborated on the practical challenges healthcare providers face due to the lack of interoperability, a reality that complicates patient care significantly. "We're living longer with more medical comorbidities, and more medical issues coexisting together," he explained, stressing the complexity of managing patient care in such a fragmented system. "Thus, you know, at a certain stage in life, having to have input from more than one doctor," he explained. Managing patient care in such a fragmented system, where coordinating and synthesizing complex patient journeys is an increasingly fraught task, “leads to a lot of administrative headaches and frustrations, and time wasted."
As the digital health landscape keeps shifting, Infoway’s work, bolstered by the introduction of C-72, promises to bring about systemic improvements. “I always temper my excitement a little bit with these kinds of things, but it's a first step in the right direction,” said Bhyat, adding that that Infoway is also in the process of convening a national interoperability task force with developments expected in the fall, “Stay tuned.”