VICTORIA, BC – British Columbians will get four new cancer care centres that can offer radiation treatment as the province gets ready for an increase in cases of age-related cancers. Health Minister Adrian Dix (pictured) said that new cancer care centres will be opening in Kamloops, Nanaimo, Surrey and Burnaby. These centres are still in the early planning stages, which has sparked criticism from opposition party BC United, who say former premier John Horgan first promised a new cancer care centre in Kamloops during his 2020 campaign. At the time Horgan said the Kamloops facility would open it ..read more

MONTREAL – To cut the time taken to move patients experiencing a heart attack from home to hospital and into the angiography suite, the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) has partnered with Stenoa on a platform that integrates and coordinates care among different parts of the system. Until now, the healthcare system in Quebec has lacked a truly integrated online infrastructure to coordinate logistically complex, time-sensitive and life-saving care. Instead, healthcare professionals, such as paramedics, emergency physicians, interventional cardiolog ..read more

HAMILTON, Ont. – Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is restoring its provincial burn program and establishing a new burn research centre. “HHS is committed to building a burn program of excellence,” says Dr. Marc Jeschke (pictured), a globally recognized burn surgeon and researcher, and medical director of HHS provincial burn unit. “This is the beginning of a new era for care in Hamilton and an opportunity to conduct state-of-the-art research and science to improve the lives of patients.” In summer 2022, Dr. Jeschke moved his lab and team from Toronto to Hamilton to help rebuild the burn program a ..read more

TORONTO – Bayshore HealthCare has launched an innovative remote patient monitoring (RPM) program designed to improve patient outcomes, enhance healthcare delivery, and streamline communication among healthcare providers. Built in collaboration with Microsoft and using the power of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Vantage is a cloud-based solution that allows healthcare providers to monitor patients’ health remotely, provide timely interventions, and reduce avoidable hospital readmissions and emergency department visits. The Vantage platform is built on the HL7 FHIR data model, ensuring seamless ..read more

KITCHENER, Ont. – Grand River Hospital is celebrating the biggest donation in its history – $15 million – from the founders of Kitchener’s iconic HiWay Market. The legacy gift from Dorothy and Ralph Kraft, who opened the area’s first grocery superstore in 1952 on King Street East, kicked off the official launch of Grand River Hospital Foundation’s $258-million Care Never Stops campaign. “We’re energized by the legacy of the Krafts’ innovation and inspiration in our community,” said Paul McIntyre Royston (pictured), president and chief executive officer of the hospital foundation. The Care Neve ..read more

TORONTO – MEDITECH has announced an agreement with Canada Health Infoway to connect with PrescribeIT, a national e-prescribing service. This will enable prescribers in Canada to electronically transmit a prescription directly from the Expanse EHR to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. The e-prescribing functionality will allow prescribers to easily create new prescriptions, initiate renewal of existing prescriptions, as well as cancel prescription requests. MEDITECH and Canada Health Infoway are working with Humber River Hospital to deploy e-prescribing and are forecast to go live this fall. “Ph ..read more

COOKSHIRE, Que. – The federal government is making a repayable contribution of $250,000 for Omni–Med.com Inc. (Omnimed). This CED funding will allow Omnimed – a pioneer in the field of electronic medical records (EMRs) in Quebec – to expand and ensure the growth of the business both within Canada and internationally. Founded in 1998, Omnimed specializes in the design and implementation of information systems for the health sector aimed at improving collaboration, information sharing, workflow efficiency, access to medical knowledge and the continuity of healthcare. Drawing on the expertise of ..read more

LONDON – England’s health-worker shortage is so severe that the National Health Service can’t staff “virtual wards” that were meant to relieve the burden on its struggling hospitals. Plans to roll out thousands more virtual wards – where patients get the care they need at home rather than at a hospital – are being severely hampered by the dearth of clinical staff, according to the NHS Confederation, which represents UK medical workers and hospitals. Virtual wards have been touted as part of the solution to address pressures faced by the NHS which is grappling with an aging population, high hos ..read more

SASKATOON – The government of Africa’s most populated country has enlisted the help of a Saskatoon tech firm to deliver remote healthcare to millions of people. Saskatoon’s Ethnomet has partnered with the Nigerian government to develop a telehealth app that facilitates connections between patients and physicians regardless of distance. “It’s been a long time coming,” said Ethomet CEO Garnette Weber (pictured) in an interview with CTV News. “We’ve had numerous discussions on how best to serve the people of Nigeria, identify their specific needs, and address the healthcare challenges they face ..read more

TORONTO – When the Ontario government announced an expansion of online mental health supports to help Ontarians navigate the challenges of the pandemic in 2020 – including free access to self-guided, internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programs – an alarm bell sounded in the mind of bioethics researcher Rachel Katz (pictured). “Self-guided CBT and other AI-based therapies are not a band-aid solution for the current mental health crisis in Canada,” said Katz, noting that there are a number of mental health conditions for which CBT is not the ideal solution and can actually make s ..read more