Slideshow: The Canada-U.S. eHealth Summit

November 29, 2010

03:47 PM

The 2nd Annual Canada-U.S. eHealth Summit

The 2nd Annual Canada-U.S. eHealth Summit was held in Philadelphia on November 16. The Canadian Consulate in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania eHealth Initiative and the HIMSS Delaware Valley Chapter were the primary organizers of the Summit, which brought U.S. and Canadian healthcare IT officials together to share success strategies. All photos courtesy of Matthew Wolf, Wyndetryst Design & Photography. Click images to enlarge.

Barry Straube, MD

Barry Straube, MD, CMO and director of the Office of Standards and Quality at CMS, gave the initial conference keynote address. Straube discussed the high cost of healthcare per capita in the United States, while noting that care quality is inferior to that of other nations. He also talked about various financial incentives to drive cost control and quality improvement, such as P4P, ARRA and the HITECH Act, and the move toward Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

William Pascal

The other keynote speaker was William Pascal, chief technology officer at the Canadian Medical Association. Pascal provided an overview of how the Canadian healthcare system is funded and discussed policy drivers for healthcare IT investment north of the U.S. border. Pascal's work at the Canadian Office of Health and Information Highway led to the creation of Canada Health Infoway.

John Glaser

John Glaser, CEO of the Health Business Unit at Siemens Healthcare, speaks with Richard Pizzi, editor of Healthcare Finance News, at the Summit. Glaser, formerly CIO at Partners Healthcare in Boston, told Summit attendees that meaningful use will continue to be the top healthcare IT issue in 2011.

Ed Brown, MD

One panel at the Summit focused entirely on how mobile technologies can be used to improve healthcare delivery. Ed Brown, MD, CEO of the Ontario Telemedicine Network, told attendees how the province of Ontario uses telemedicine to boost access and efficiency of care. Brown explained how the Telehomecare for Chronic Disease Management project, which monitors health data in the home to empower patient self-management, led to a 66 percent decrease in hospital admissions.

David Levine

David Levine, president of the Montreal Health and Social Service Agency, emphasized the importance of a population-based managed care model when implementing mobile health technologies. He talked about the need to develop "corridors of care" for seamless service delivery.