By Nellie Kamau
As a student at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, I have a keen interest in the public sector presentations focusing on policy planning as it relates to Canadian health and healthcare delivery. Following are the notes I took as an attendee at the Digital Health Canada Ontario Conference 2025.
Opening Keynote: Why AI Will Replace Doctors and What That Means for Digital Health Innovation Today
- In the next 3 years, we can expect that AI will be able to apply medical knowledge and provide reasonable suggestions for diagnosis.
- On reflecting on AI’s capabilities that are beyond human capacity, the speaker, Dr. Amol, mentioned examples of how AI can distinguish between a normally ECG and Atrial Fibrillation and it can predict who will get a stroke using a normal ECG by noticing the structural signs of a heart that is likely to get a stroke.
- Producing more reliable clinical AI will require combined data, a strong digital infrastructure, and people who know how to use the data.
Driving Innovation in Ontario’s Health System: Updates from Key Health Delivery Partners
- The big question here is whether digital health can unite the healthcare system? Current pain points include: lags in provision of technological products in procurement
- There is great need for system collaboration at all levels
- Seamless service provision for care providers reduces administrative burdens for clinicians
- Collectively, system actors can be flexible and adaptable to create effectiveness and scal
Transforming Integrated Care: The Role of Digital Health in Ontario Health Teams
- Some of the key challenges have been that digital health often seems like a burden to tech folks; partners are often in different silos; and there’s no shared understanding of integrated care
- Actors should pay close attention to digital enablers and possible operational plans that are interoperable; needs assessment on needs for the general public; public education on digital health tools; and active reflection on barriers that are created by the digital tools
Key opportunities identified: integrated healthcare pathways from local communities; a single source of truth for information; digital health provision for primary care; specialized community care; and flexibility in OHS to differentiate between different community needs
Concurrent Session 2: Bridging the Gap – Ensuring Equitable Access in Digital Healthcare
- Technology is often not conceived systematically so there is a major problem in mapping the tech landscape and ensuring interoperability. Information is often held in different silos with different systems often doing the same thing.
- There’s a huge opportunity to create connectedness and to provide informal tech support e.g. through the receptionist
- Streamlining tech standards, health standards and legislation will ensure that every care provider has up to date information, all the time.
- Digital designs also need to provide the right solution because of the risk of providing the “right solution for the wrong question”. This entails designing within the margins and having a team with a diverse skillset.
Community centres can also be leveraged as a touchpoint for digital literacy for patients because these are spaces that have trusted community members present.
Closing Keynote: How Can Digital Tools Strengthen Primary Care in Ontario?
- Primary Care focuses on Contact, Continuity, Comprehensiveness, and Coordination
- To provide better health outcomes, more equitability, and lower cost, digital health systems must consider these 4Cs
- The future has endless possibilities. From a system that provides one patient-one record-one source of truth to scheduling self-assessments for patients, primary care in Ontario can be appropriately structured and incentivized for family medicine