Liberals table bill that would force health data vendors to allow secure data sharing – National

The federal Liberals are moving to streamline and secure health data across jurisdictions with a new bill that imposes new rules on technology vendors.

Health Minister Mark Holland tabled the legislation in the House of Commons on Thursday morning.

The bill would require vendors to ensure that health information tech they license, sell or supply as a service is interoperable.

That means patients and health-care providers would be able to completely and securely access the data and exchange it with other systems — for example, those being used in another hospital or jurisdiction.

The bill is designed fill gaps in provinces and territories where similar provisions don’t already exist.

It would also prohibit data blocking, or any practice that would prevent, discourage or interfere with a user’s access to their own health data or their ability to transfer it to another system.

Last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered provinces and territories a new 10-year health accord in response to pleas from jurisdictions that said they were facing an urgent shortage of health workers and massive backlogs to deliver care.

0:59
New funding ‘flowing’ to Albertans to support data delivery on improved health-care outcomes, health minister says

In exchange for an estimated $17.3 billion in new health funding from the federal government through the Canada Health Transfer, Trudeau asked provinces to share comparable data and digitize the health information of Canadians so it can be more easily accessed and shared between hospitals, clinics and jurisdictions.

The federal government has argued that better comparable health data is an important part of making sure the new funds go toward actually improving health outcomes for Canadians.

All the provinces and territories have signed on to the deal as of March this year.

Canada Health Infoway has developed a federal and provincial plan to make individual health records and information more accessible to patients and clinicians, which can then be used to measure the health of the population and the system overall.

The group expects health systems will save hundreds of millions of dollars and doctors could save millions of hours by making patient info and health data easier to access.

The plan is still in the very early stages and some provinces are farther along than others when it comes to upgrading their technology.

&copy 2024 The Canadian Press