Joint task force releases recommendations report to address barriers to interoperability in healthcare

A joint task force has released a set of five recommendations aimed to quickly address the barriers to interoperability in Canada’s healthcare system.The Digital Health Interoperability Task Force—comprising of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and Canada Health Infoway—put out its recommendation report Monday, calling on the federal, provincial and territorial governments to “commit to developing and implementing a comprehensive plan to improve interoperability within five years.”“The plan should be developed, and its implementation overseen, through the immediate establishment of a collaborative National Health Data Governance Council,” the task force said in its recommendation.With the multitude of healthcare providers keeping patient data in information silos disconnected to one another, the lack of interoperability has led to a great deal of inefficiency in the healthcare system. As a family physician, it’s something that task force member and past CMA president Dr. Kathleen Ross has seen first-hand.“Just last week, I was on 24-hour call shift for primary care obstetrics and tracked my time out of interest. And it was two-and-a-half hours of my 24-hour shift that I spent logging on and off other digital health systems to get the critical information that I needed to treat the patient in front of me,” she said in an interview with the Medical Post.“We need to ensure that clinicians treating patients, patients and their caregivers, or members of their care team, all have access to the same critical information that they need in order to deliver the best care possible. Unfortunately, because of these multiple data silos are across Canada, we don't have that that universal access as of yet,” Dr. Ross continued.Currently, there is a government bill before the House of Commons that would open the door for patients to be able to securely access their health data and allow for better data sharing between providers. Bill C-72, or the Connected Care for Canadians Act, would establish standards for data exchange prohibit health information technology vendors from data blocking. The task force says legislative efforts like this one should be “effectively accelerated.”The task force is also calling on provinces and territories to “commit to address the key barriers that prevent physicians . . . from participating in health data interoperability initiatives.” This includes ensuring that solutions are co-designed with practicing clinicians and making sure that these initiatives don’t cause additional administrative or cost burdens to clinicians.“Administrative burden is a big challenge and the need to avoid downloading the administrative burden and cost of interoperability initiatives to the clinicians,” Dr. Ross said.There are also recommendations for national, provincial and territorial medical associations, calling on them to develop best practice guidelines for engaging in the interoperable digital health environment. The task force is also calling on research and funding groups to increase their funding for innovations in digital health that will reduce clinician workloads and “enhance the capabilities of existing digital health tools and systems.”“This is going to take on investment ongoing deployment of funding to to continue to innovate in digital health,” Dr. Ross said. “AI has certainly taught that the world of digital health and digital transformation of health is going to accelerate in ways that at the moment we can’t anticipate. So, this needs to be a long-term commitment.”

Joint task force releases recommendations report to address barriers to interoperability in healthcare

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