Health committee  Thanks for the question. That's a great question. The interoperability aspect is huge, and I know that is one of the funding priorities of Canada Health Infoway, but that data flow among hospitals and external organizations does not exist to the capacity that would benefit the

Health committee  On concrete needs, I really think we need a broad strategy to encourage collaboration in health informatics. Right now, IT is working completely separate from clinical, and that's been our biggest struggle in this project. On this project, there has been me, full time, and then w

Health committee  In northeastern Ontario you have higher numbers of smoking rates, obesity rates, and chronic disease rates, which have led to our hospital having one of the highest percentages of patients admitted through the emergency department. Somewhere upwards of 20% of patients who present

Health committee  It's partly that. We do have preventative care services, but they are lacking. Over the past 20 to 30 years the focus of health care in Canada has been hospital care. We are trying to make a transition towards primary care, but the dollars right now are being budgeted and it's ha

Health committee  That's a great question. It would be a physical infrastructure funding program. A lot of these costs have not been budgeted by health care facilities. Most of their funding comes from pay-for-result services, but that funding for physical infrastructure is not there. With an up

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak before the Standing Committee on Health today. I'd like to first take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Branden Shepitka. I'm a registered nurse by training, with a clinical background in emergency