The pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy: Expert Advisory Group Overview

Overview

Federal/provincial/territorial co-development of a Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy (the Strategy) aims to support the effective creation, exchange, and use of critical health data for the benefit of Canadians and the health and public health systems they rely on.

The Strategy will focus on establishing a common foundation to improve the way we use, share and manage health data. The ultimate goal of these improvements is to empower individuals with their own health data, enable clinicians to provide better care and support the use of health data to improve health care, public health and population systems to help Canada prevent and respond to future health threats.

A collaborative approach to develop and deliver the strategy is being taken by governments and health data partners. Supporting this approach, an Expert Advisory Group (EAG) was established in fall 2020 to provide advice and guidance as the work evolves.

The EAG released its third and final report in April 2022 which provides evidence-informed advice to the federal government on the Strategy.

Expert Advisory Group

The mandate of the Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy Expert Advisory Group (EAG) was to provide advice on the development of the Strategy's work. The EAG membership was composed of experts from across the country with wide-ranging expertise across health system, public health, and population health data with perspectives on analytics, data management, and privacy.

Specifically, the EAG provided advice on:

• strategic direction for the use of health system, population, and public health data to improve the health of Canada and Canadians;
• principles to guide the creation, collection, storage, and use of data; and
• a practical and phased roadmap for the implementation of measures to sustainably address areas of greatest opportunity and impact.

The EAG was chaired by Dr. Vivek Goel and was provided secretariat support via the Public Health Agency of Canada. The EAG provided advice to the Data Pillar Assistant Deputy Minister Committee (DPAC), which works with federal, provincial, and territorial partners to develop the Strategy. DPAC reports into the Deputy Minister's Committee on Data Management and the Conference of Deputy Ministers of Health (CDMH).