OK, let's start the discussion with a Government agency called Canada Health Infoway (CHI) -- the latter is funded by the Federal Government and has a mandate to manage the roll-out of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Canada-wide.
CHI delegates the work and funding to each Province -- here in Ontario, we're slated to have a fully-functioning EHR for everyone by 2015; current news articles tend to cast some doubt over the latter, but nevertheless, this is the current projection.
See http://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/lang-en for more details.
The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) is of course our Provincial ministry responsible for all things related to public health care and is included because it also funds eHealth initiatives through the various agencies discussed below; this ministry gets the bulk of its funding from Federal Government transfers and our Provincial tax dollars.
See http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/default.aspx for more details.
eHealth Ontario could perhaps be regarded as CHI's arm in Ontario -- basically their mandate is to create the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure on which the EHR will be built; for example, it's all fine and good to have Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) installed in care provider facilities (such as doctors' offices, hospitals and nursing homes amongst others), but if they cannot electronically share this information, not much progress from our current paper-based records will have been made.
Hence, eHealth Ontario is working to implement a secure data communication network for authorized medical facilities.
See http://www.ehealthontario.on.ca/ for more details.
Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) also play a role in eHealth, but they tend to focus on managing community health care. Funded from the Provincial budget, initiatives include IT projects that help to transform major health care providers such as hospitals and long term care facilities.
See http://www.lhins.on.ca/home.aspx?LangType=4105 for more details.
OntarioMD is the IT resource for physicians in Ontario, hence it plays a key role in the implementation of the EMR which in turn is a component of the EHR.
Funded by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and the MOHLTC, you'll find OntarioMD involved in such projects as helping physicians navigate the maze of the EMR implementation process, or certifying EMR vendors' software offerings.
See http://www.ontariomd.ca/ for more details.
Of course the above is just a basic overview -- as with real life, there are no crystal clear delineations between eHealth organizations since one could just as easily find CHI or eHealth Ontario funding a special project with OntarioMD, for instance.
So there -- I've dared to document what I know; now it's your turn! What do you think -- have I missed/mis-represented anything?
Please -- feel free to comment.
Contest
You're still encouraged to guess where the above picture was taken -- please check here for some notes and rules.
Hint: What prefixes "land" goes with a shirt
Month: October
Yikes, Daylight Savings Time is coming to an end! Stay aware as it becomes darker when you leave/get back home.
Ernest A. James
President/CEO
Regal Informatics Inc.
www.regalinformatics.com
