CREATE embarks on ambitious interop project

HAMILTON, Ont. – CREATE (Centre for Data Science and Digital Health), part of Hamilton Health Sciences, is playing a key role in developing a universal translator of sorts for Canada’s healthcare system. This innovative technology will instantly connect the different electronic medical records systems used, for example, by thousands of Canada’s family doctors, hospitals and long-term care facilities, allowing providers to quickly and confidentially access patient medical records for faster, better and safer care.

Currently, Canada’s primary care providers, hospitals and other providers such as long-term care facilities use a variety of different electronic medical record systems for storing confidential patient information. These systems are rarely compatible so information can’t be quickly or easily shared. This lack of connection translates into longer waits for patient care, because of the time it takes to transfer health information between providers using outdated technology like fax machines.

If, for example, a Hamilton resident needs emergency care while in British Columbia, or even much closer to home in Niagara, there’s currently no way for emergency department doctors to instantly check the person’s entire medical history for vital information like chronic diseases, current medications, allergies and immunizations because the different systems aren’t linked.

Efforts to connect these systems is at the heart of an ambitious plan, called the Shared Pan-Canadian Interoperability Roadmap, that could allow healthcare providers across Canada to instantly access each other’s electronic patient medical records. This massive project is being led by federally and provincially funded Canada Health Infoway, which works with governments and healthcare organizations to make healthcare more digital and connected, with a focus on accelerating digital health adoption across Canada.

“CREATE is providing expertise in interoperability – which is the ability of different systems to communicate and share data with each other, to support this,” says Dr. Jeremy Petch (pictured left), CREATE’s director. Staffed with experts in software engineering, AI and data sciences, CREATE works to develop new ideas and digital solutions that fundamentally reimagine how healthcare is delivered. This includes working with HHS teams as well as organizations in both the public and private sector.

Infoway, in partnership with Ontario Health and British Columbia’s Provincial Health Services Authority, launched a joint design and development of a health application lightweight protocol framework (called HALO).

CREATE’s role for this project includes developing the pan Canadian specifications for the framework that will allow web applications from providers to plug into various electronic medical records and point-of-care solutions so they can be shared.

“Through our team’s contract with Infoway, we’re helping to establish an environment where information can confidentially flow between existing, differing electronic medical records across Canada,” says Dr. Ted Scott (pictured right), vice president of innovation and partnerships for HHS.

CREATE has significant expertise in FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), the new and cutting-edge way to access healthcare information instantly between different computer systems, regardless of how information is stored.

“We’re working with Infoway, Ontario and B.C. to build out one of the first components of this roadmap to demonstrate how it would work,” says Petch. “The longer-term vision is an enormous undertaking because of the scope, but the work happening now is providing valuable first steps towards what the future could look like.”