eHealth Innovations: Empowering patients, enabling better health care

The purpose of the eHealth Initiative was to develop, integrate, and evaluate eHealth innovations to improve the cost-effectiveness of patient and population-centred care. The initiative facilitated partnerships between technology industries and health system players, researchers and end-users such as patients/families and clinicians to create innovative approaches to health care delivery, and results showed that the Initiative improved outcomes and patient experience in priority areas and increased Canada's competitive position in the health-related information communication technology (ICT) industry.

Conditions for success:

• Person-oriented rather than technology-oriented solutions
• Driven by small-and medium sized industry partners
• Creation of health care innovation communities made up of partnerships between researchers, end users, and health system decision makers
• Formal evaluation methods and metrics to support buy-in from the health-system

The eHealth Innovation initiative (eHII) was co-led by the Institutes of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) and Aging (IA) in collaboration with the Institutes of:

• Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA)
• Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH)