Ms. Collins.
Evidence of meeting #84 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #84 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Chair, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada
I have a comment on the FDA.
It is quite a new thing, as I understand it, for the FDA to get involved in the regulation of mobile and medical technology. It was only just over a year ago, I think, that they went through a consultation process and sent out the drafts for everything. They were struggling themselves as to what they should regulate and in what way.
I don't actually know if Health Canada has undertaken a similar process or has come to the same conclusions about which of these kinds of apps, where there is an interaction with the human body, should actually be regulated. I wasn't able to find anything on the website on that.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
All right.
Dr. Milne, I heard you say that there is much more focus on patient-centred care now than in the past. I fully agree with you. However, I am concerned because not all of these technologies are affordable. I fear that they will only be available to a limited group of people.
Do you think the widespread use of those innovations which are really useful for tracking chronic illnesses will help significantly?
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Chair, Rural Medicine, Gateway Rural Health Research Institute
Thank you very much for the question.
To try to answer it, it would be best to say that yes, there are barriers with it when it comes to using the technology, so what we need to do is make sure that everybody has access to primary care. And when I say primary care, I don't mean me as a doctor; I mean primary care. That can be delivered through a number of different providers. At the provider level, they can afford to have the technology to help with the patient and to do the shared decision-making.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Thank you very much.
We're now going to me and to Dr. Carrie.
If the clerk will watch the time, I will take half your time. Thank you, Dr. Carrie.
Mr. Friesen, you talked about all these exciting apps. It was very thrilling to think that an app could teach people how to plan meals, how to have exercise time, and how to be assessed. You assess them individually. Let's say somebody wanted to do this. How much does it cost per person to do this?
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
That really depends on how it's implemented. As our company uses it right now, for the corporations that are using it, the cost is as low as 50¢ per employee per month.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
You go to businesses or to the general public and say that you have this exciting program, that you can monitor them and take care of their health, and there's a cost to it. As you were talking, I thought it was very exciting, but there is a cost to it, and it's not hooked into any health care plans that I'm aware of. Also, you said that you do a lot of it down in the U.S., south of the border. Why is that?
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
It's because there's a health crisis both north and south of the border, but theirs is actually more expensive than ours. They're more proactively looking at preventative measures right now, because of the correlations to what it saves on the care side.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
So many people pay so much money to go to an exercise club. It seems to me if you have this on your hand-held device right in front of you, and you have certain exercises or eating regimes, that would be more cost effective in terms of travel time, in terms of.... Could you comment on that?
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
Absolutely, and to actually be engaged in healthy activity....
As an example, you mentioned a health club. I'm not here to take away the benefits of going to the health club, because equipment, and trainers, and all those things are good motivation and accountability tools, but if you work out with your body weight for 30 minutes, three times a week—
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Can I ask you one question? I've only got 30 seconds left.
Let's say somebody does that and uses the apps. Do you have a before and after...? You said you assessed them. Do you have results for after, seeing if they indeed had followed through with their plan? If so, how do you handle that?
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
The system actually reapplies different suggestions then as well. It gives different training or different advice based on how you journal.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
My question is, how do you assess it? You start from point A and you end up at point Z, so how do you assess the increase or decrease in the person's health?
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
There are various health scores you can look at in assessments. It could be your biometric screening, so your blood work.
4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
Yes. For the blood work you'd have to go to a lab.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Great. You have to go to a lab for blood work. You don't draw blood. That's comforting.
Thank you.
Okay, Dr. Carrie.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I just want to say, Mr. Friesen, I think what you're doing is fantastic. Before I was a politician, I was a chiropractor and I ran two wellness clinics. When I started almost 25 years ago nobody knew what the term “wellness” was, and about prevention. Nobody looked at prevention. It was after you had a disease that you'd start to intervene.
You talked about corporate wellness and prevention, but also about the idea of changing behaviour and getting that knowledge out to people. Could you comment on what you see the barriers to implementation of these new technologies and systems being?
The second question I wanted to ask is for Dr. Milne. You talked about everything being about the patient, that it's centred around the patient. I was wondering how we use technology to encourage more personal responsibility, and as my colleague said, patient empowerment.
4:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Beagle Productions
I think the biggest obstacle we are seeing, and we talked a bit about it already today, is accessibility. How do we make it accessible to people? If your employer is providing it, or if a school is providing it, then you have that, but if they're not, then you need to be self-motivated to go out and search it out. That is the gap right now. Technology is built to scale, so it could handle hundreds of millions of users. It is really how we make it accessible and what's the right way to make that accessible to everyone.
4:55 p.m.
Chair, Rural Medicine, Gateway Rural Health Research Institute
Health literacy of course correlates to health outcome. We really don't know individually what people's health literacy is, and that's so key in the relationship. That's why just last year we validated the REALM, rapid estimate of adult literacy in medicine, short form. There is a 10-second test to target what your health literacy is using the REALM short form. Then I can put you into four different categories for your health literacy and then target that. It is frustrating, though, to do it even for 10 seconds on a paper-based model. My 14-year-old son was sitting behind me and saw that I was frustrated and pulling my hair out and he said, “Why don't I just make an app for that, Dad?”
4:55 p.m.
Conservative