“Despite good intentions, millions of dollars, years of effort and, probably matching the historical norm of any visionary undertaking, a scandal or two, Ontario does not yet have an electronic health record (“EHR”). Despite some success with building networks and applications to support an EHR, the government still hasn’t got data governance right.
Keep in mind the purpose of a functioning EHR is to facilitate access to sensitive personal information by a number of different players. Some are obvious such as medical personnel who access your health data to provide acute, primary or even long-term home care. Some may be government staff with one eye on the ever-increasing percentage of the provincial budget devoted to healthcare and another on programs to systemically reduce healthcare costs through health promotion/maintenance. Others may be researchers seeking new insights or solutions that may be gleaned from that vast pool of longitudinal data that EHR-related databases will hold.”
Article
Michael Power, 25 July 2010
