Just until one? Okay.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was systems.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #65 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was systems.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Strategy and Transformation, Ottawa Hospital
To close on that, my suggestion to the committee is to slow or focus investment on specific problems and to look at the problems across the entire system and at how the existing systems might be consolidated and aggregated above the specific systems to meet better integration and data flow needs.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thanks very much.
Actually, it reminds me of something in my own experience, having worked in a large financial services company where there were 20 different platforms for trading securities. It was because different parts of the company tried to solve their own problems by building their own technological solutions that we ended up with too many platforms. So that resonates with me.
To Ms. Collins and Mr. McDonald, you told us that a holistic approach, looking at the social determinants of health, is very important in the prevention of chronic disease. I think the technological innovation—a large part of it—is good measurement and understanding of the social determinants of health. Do you think the government needs to improve in its measurement of the social determinants of health in Canada?
12:55 p.m.
Chair, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada, BC Healthy Living Alliance
Thank you.
I think we all need to be able to do that more effectively. There certainly is some good work being done.
I wanted to come back to the fact that we certainly support all the initiatives that are being done to make the health care delivery system more effective in using technology and innovation, but we have to look at the demand side. That's what we think you really need to focus on and keep people healthy and out of the health care system.
A lot of innovation is happening, but we need mechanisms by which we can share that and assess its effectiveness. Also, of course, we need to have more effective information about what the impact of the social determinants are on people generally and on their health.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Libby Davies
Okay.
Thank you very much. This will now conclude our meeting. I'd like to thank all the witnesses for coming today and especially for being patient while we rush out to do our voting.
Again, if you have other submissions you'd like to make, please forward them to us and we will continue our work with this study.
The meeting is now adjourned.