eHealth is an overarching term used to describe the application of information and communications technologies in the health sector, according to Health Canada. It encompasses a whole range of purposes from purely administrative through to healthcare delivery.
Ottawa-based Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) recently launched its e-Therapeutics portal, an online knowledge management system that delivers up-to-date and unbiased drug information to healthcare practitioners.
More than 11,000 adverse drug events were reported to Health Canada in 2005, but the actual unreported numbers are much higher, according to IBM Canada research. Many of these incidents could be prevented if doctors had the right information at their fingertips. rn