E-Health Conference -Speaking Notes - the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq Minister of Health

Monday, May 27, 2013
Ottawa, ON

Check Against Delivery

Good morning.

I'm pleased to be here to help open the e-Health 2013 Accelerating Change conference. For those of you visiting Ottawa, I'd like to welcome you to our nation's capital. 

I want to begin by congratulating COACH: Canada's Health Informatics Association, Canada Health Infoway and the Canadian Institute for Health Information for organizing this event.

The theme of this year's conference is aptly named Accelerating Change. Nowhere in the public health system is this more important than in the field of health information technology.

Over the next few days you'll be examining the impacts, consumerization and future of e-Health and how it's transforming our health system.

The average Canadian might wonder why so much emphasis is placed on e-Health today.

The answer is simple: e-Health supports better, safer health care for more people. It also makes our system more efficient, reduces inequalities and saves taxpayers money.

Explaining this is easy. Putting it into practice, however, is far more complex.

That's because a robust e-Health system requires many things including cooperation, investment, partnership, engagement, and innovation.

With respect to cooperation, our country is fortunate to have several national organizations such as COACH, Canada Health Infoway and CIHI forging the path.  

Over the years, the Government of Canada has made significant investments in e-health. Canada Health Infoway, in particular, has received a $2.1 billion federal investment to implement electronic health records, digitize physicians' offices, connect electronic systems, and accelerate clinician adoption.

None of this work could be done without partnerships with provinces, territories and other stakeholders. Last February, I toured the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario where I saw, firsthand, how electronic health records benefit patients. I look forward to seeing this work replicated in health settings across the country.

User engagement, of course, is essential. Apps, online resources and other tools must be developed with doctors, nurses and patients in mind. If they aren't user-friendly, they will be quickly cast-off. Therefore, it is important for developers of new technologies to collaborate with their end users.

Today, I'm pleased to announce that through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research our Government is investing an additional $1.6 million in 16 new e-health projects.

We can all agree that innovation is key when it comes to the long-term sustainability of our health care system. I'm pleased to report that each of these projects will create technologies that empower patients, assist health care providers and monitor population health.

Patients will be empowered when researchers at the University of British Columbia develop an online tool to help people with rheumatoid arthritis make treatment decisions. At the same time, researchers at Dalhousie University will be developing an app that helps people with diabetes manage their condition.

Health care providers will also benefit when researchers at the University of Calgary create tools that enable doctors and nurses to effectively plan the safe discharge of patients from intensive care units.

And, researchers at McGill University Health Centre will monitor population health by evaluating the effectiveness of a web-based e-health program for people at risk of cardiovascular disease.  

These are just some of the technologies that will be developed with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
 
As this conference unfolds, you will be exposed to many new and innovative ideas. Through it all, it's important to keep the patient in mind. The patient, after all, is at the heart of our health care system. The patient is what drives us to do better.

Whether it's providing telehealth services to Canadians in rural, remote or Northern parts of Canada or to Ottawa's very own Helene Campbell -- who's part of this conference -- the patient must always come first. 

I want to close by reiterating how pleased I am to be here, but even more so, how pleased I am to see all of YOU here. 

This conference brings together many of the brightest Canadian minds in the field of e-Health. It's designed to help you share knowledge and pool resources so that, together, you can help revolutionize our health care system.

Thank you all for being part of this change.