Experiences and Outcomes of Using e-Prescribing for Opioids: Rapid Scoping Review.

Background: e-Prescribing is designed to assist in facilitating safe and appropriate prescriptions for patients. Currently, it is unknown to what extent e-prescribing for opioids influences experiences and outcomes. To address this gap, a rapid scoping review was conducted.

Correction: Uncovering Important Drivers of the Increase in the Use of Virtual Care Technologies in Nursing Care: Quantitative Analysis From the 2020 National Survey of Canadian Nurses.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/33586.].

Finding the Right Balance in Virtual Care: Insights from Canadian Physicians.

Canadian physicians' perceptions on their use of and experience with virtual care offer important insights into finding the right balance in virtual care. Using data from the 2021 National Survey of Canadian Physicians conducted by Canada Health Infoway and the Canadian Medical Association (Canada Health Infoway and CMA 2021), we explored the mix of virtual care use by physicians, satisfaction with and challenges of virtual care and other perspectives around its continued use. We discuss how these data inform and enrich some of the key recommendations put forward by Falk (2022) in this issue.

Uncovering Important Drivers of the Increase in the Use of Virtual Care Technologies in Nursing Care: Quantitative Analysis From the 2020 National Survey of Canadian Nurses.

Background: Canadian nurses are at the forefront of patient care delivery. Although the use of digital health technologies for care delivery is gaining momentum in Canada, nurses are encouraged to integrate virtual care into their practice. In early 2020, more Canadian nurses delivered care virtually compared with 3 years ago.

Socioeconomic Disparities in the Demand for and Use of Virtual Visits Among Senior Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has limited the provision of in-person care and accelerated the need for virtual care. Older adults (65+ years) were 1 of the highest user groups of in-person health care services prior to the pandemic. Social distancing guidelines and high rates of mortality from coronavirus infections among older adults made receiving in-person health care services challenging for older adults.

Digital Health Value Realization Through Active Change Efforts.

Digital health has massive potential in health care but has been slow to evolve in comparison to other information-intensive industries, which have more readily taken advantage of new technology. One of the key barriers has been the complex relationship between the perceived return on investment for the investor and the resulting value to patients and caregivers. Those actors who pay for technologies do not always see an appreciable return for themselves, while those actors who must apply the technology to generate value are not always incentivized to do so.

Interoperable Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchanges: Systematic Review.

Background: As the availability of interoperable electronic health records (iEHRs) or health information exchanges (HIEs) continues to increase, there is greater need and opportunity to assess the current evidence base on what works and what does not regarding the adoption, use, and impact of iEHRs.

Objective: The purpose of this project is to assess the international evidence base on the adoption, use, and impact of iEHRs.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review, searching multiple databases-MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL)-with supplemental searches conducted in Google Scholar and grey literature sources (ie, Google, Grey Literature Report, and OpenGrey).

Connecting Families to Their Health Record and Care Team: The Use, Utility, and Impact of a Client/Family Health Portal at a Children's Rehabilitation Hospital.

Background: Health care portals have the potential to provide consumers with timely, transparent access to health care information and engage them in the care process.

Objective: The objective was to examine the use, utility, and impact on engagement in care and caregiver-provider communication of a client/family portal providing access to electronic health records (EHRs) and secure, 2-way e-messaging with care providers.

Methods: We conducted a prospective, mixed-methods study involving collection of caregivers' portal usage information over a 14-month period (from portal introduction in January 2015 to the end of the study period in March 2016), a Web-based survey for caregivers administered after a minimum of 2 months' exposure to the portal and repeated 2 months later, and focus groups or individual interviews held with caregivers and service providers at the same points in time.

The Need for Electronic Health Records in Long-Term Care.

Long-term care (LTC) settings serve an important proportion of seniors and vulnerable populations that require 24-hour nursing care. Deployment of interoperable electronic health records (iEHRs) to these settings lag. There is little evidence on the availability of patient information from across the continuum of care.

Novel Approaches to Digital Health Evaluation Capacity Building.

Exploration of the capacity for digital health evaluation in Canada reveals substantial progress, and much important evaluation work being conducted. Further progress can be achieved with innovative approaches to capacity building. Canada Health Infoway is implementing novel approaches around partnerships, resources, project integration and sharing knowledge.

Use and Maturity of Electronic Patient Portals.

This paper focuses on the adoption of electronic patient portals aimed at providing consumers with access to their own health records along with added functions aimed to improving convenience and access to care. A variety of Canadian patient portal implementations were analysed with evidence supplemented from international examples. Measures of adoption focused on active users and frequency of access.

The value of connected health information: perceptions of electronic health record users in Canada.

Background: As health care becomes more complex, it becomes more important for clinicians and patients to share information. Electronic health information exchange can help address this need. To this end, all provinces and territories (PTs) in Canada have created interoperable electronic health records (iEHRs).

Measuring interoperable EHR adoption and maturity: a Canadian example.

Background: An interoperable electronic health record is a secure consolidated record of an individual's health history and care, designed to facilitate authorized information sharing across the care continuum.  Each Canadian province and territory has implemented such a system and for all, measuring adoption is essential to understanding progress and optimizing use in order to realize intended benefits.

Results: About 250,000 health professionals-approximately half of Canada's anticipated potential physician, nurse, pharmacist, and administrative users-indicated that they electronically access data, such as those found in provincial/territorial lab or drug information systems, in 2015.

The Effects of Web-Based Patient Access to Laboratory Results in British Columbia: A Patient Survey on Comprehension and Anxiety.

Background: Web-based patient access to personal health information is limited but increasing in Canada and internationally.

Objective: This exploratory study aimed to increase understanding of how Web-based access to laboratory test results in British Columbia (Canada), which has been broadly available since 2010, affects patients' experiences.

Methods: In November 2013, we surveyed adults in British Columbia who had had a laboratory test in the previous 12 months.

Valuing national effects of digital health investments: an applied method.

This paper describes an approach which has been applied to value national outcomes of investments by federal, provincial and territorial governments, clinicians and healthcare organizations in digital health. Hypotheses are used to develop a model, which is revised and populated based upon the available evidence. Quantitative national estimates and qualitative findings are produced and validated through structured peer review processes.

Impact of information technology on information gaps in canadian ambulatory care encounters.

Background: Specialist physicians require clinical information for patient visits in ambulatory encounters, some of which they may access via digital health solutions.

Objective: This study explored the completeness of information for patient care and the consequences of gaps for ambulatory specialist services provided in ambulatory settings in Canada.

Methods: A sample of specialist physicians practising in outpatient clinics was recruited from a health care provider research panel.

Understanding the gap between desire for and use of consumer health solutions.

Modern healthcare is more complex than ever before, with a broader range of care providers, organizations, diagnostic approaches and treatments. The result is that accurate and timely information is more important than ever. In response, clinical use of health information technology has grown significantly in recent years and there is growing interest in the use of consumer health solutions.

Measuring Maturity of Use for Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in British Columbia: The Physician Information Technology Office (PITO).

This article examines British Columbia (BC)'s Physician Information Technology Office's efforts to measure and improve the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) by select practices in BC with an assessment of their progress using a maturity model, and targeted support. The follow-up assessments showed substantial increases in the physicians' scores resulting from action plans that comprised a series of tailored support activities. Specifically, there was an increase from 21% to 83% of physicians who could demonstrate that they used their EMRs as the principal method of record-keeping.

Knowledge translation in eHealth: building a virtual community.

Knowledge can be powerful in eliciting positive change when it is put into action. This is the belief that drives knowledge translation. The University of Victoria (UVic) eHealth Observatory is focused on deriving knowledge from health information system (HIS) evaluation, which needs to be shared with HIS practitioners.

Drug information systems: evolution of benefits with system maturity.

Benefits from information and communication technology tend to grow over time as system use matures. This study examines pharmacists' experiences with provincial drug information systems (DIS) across Canada. At the time of survey, two provinces had more mature DIS (more than five years) and three provinces had less mature DIS (five years or less).

Evolution of a national approach to evaluating the benefits of the electronic health record.

Demonstrating the value of eHealth investments to users and other stakeholders, and driving ongoing optimization of benefits are increasingly important components of eHealth implementations in Canada. For these reasons, Canada Health Infoway is working with provincial partners to make research and evaluation an important component in Electronic Health Record (EHR) investments. Leading provinces working with Infoway, including British Columbia, the Province of Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador, are making evaluation a central part of their eHealth strategies and using evaluation results to optimize the benefits of investments.

Findings from evaluations of the benefits of diagnostic imaging systems.

Canada Health Infoway and its partners in the provinces and territories have made significant investments in diagnostic imaging (DI) systems across Canada. Infoway's DI Investment Program is to implement storage for diagnostic digital images so that clinicians can view images regardless of where they are stored. Specifically, Infoway is investing in Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS), which are those systems with the modern digital archiving capabilities used by DI systems.

A proposed benefits evaluation framework for health information systems in Canada.

This article describes a benefits evaluation framework for the health information systems currently being implemented across Canada through Canada Health Infoway with its jurisdictional partners and investment programs. This framework is based on the information systems success model by DeLone and McLean, the empirical analysis by van der Meijden on the use of this model in the health setting and our own review of evaluation studies and systematic review articles in health information systems. The current framework includes three dimensions of quality (system, information and service), two dimensions of system usage (use and user satisfaction) and three dimensions of net benefits (quality, access and productivity).