View all the presentations from this year's Summit
in the CHI Summit Workbook (7.5 MB).

In today’s business environment it is commonly accepted that information and communications technology will be deployed to improve service delivery and reduce costs. How will this model be integrated into Canada’s healthcare system? How can technology improve healthcare delivery, patient participation and the patient experience? This Consumer Health Informatics Summit, the first of its kind in Canada, addresses these issues and explores the technical, social and professional implications of consumer empowerment.

Overview:

Consumers, who are not necessarily suffering from any illness, are increasingly playing a more active role in their health care. This means that they are better informed about life style choices, disease etiology, treatment options, available drugs and their side effects, providers, and coping strategies. These are empowered consumers.

Information Technology can play an important role in supporting and facilitating such empowerment by providing access to reliable information, allowing communication with peers and professionals, making available information and access to tools for disease management and decision making, and providing access to electronic medical records. To the extent that such technologies are adopted, financial and capacity pressures on the overall health care system can also be eased.

New players outside the health care system are helping provide this technology. These intermediaries are bringing in knowledge and expertise from other domains to define the future of consumer informatics and facilitate its adoption.

Organizing committee:
Khaled El Emam, University of Ottawa
Gunther Eysenbach, University of Toronto
Michael Martineau, Branham Group
Bill Pascal, Canadian Medical Association

For more information contact:

Khaled El Emam, PhD
Faculty of Medicine
University of Ottawa
kelemam@uottawa.ca
www.ehealthinformation.ca