Overview of the former expert advisory group for the Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy

The COVID-19 pandemic and other recent health events highlighted challenges with collecting, accessing, sharing and using health data to benefit people in Canada. Health data includes public health, health system and population health data.

We need reliable, timely, relevant and comparable data to help guide decision-making during public health events, and to improve health outcomes in the longer term.

To identify and address data gaps, we worked collaboratively with the provinces and territories to develop a pan-Canadian health data strategy. This work focused on establishing a common foundation to improve the way we use, share and manage health data, including:

• enabling clinicians to provide better care
• giving people access to their own health data
• supporting the use of health data to improve health care, public health and population health

This work was supported by an expert advisory group (EAG).

Expert advisory group

The EAG, which operated from the fall of 2020 until the winter of 2022, was chaired by Dr. Vivek Goel with secretariat support from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Members had wide-ranging expertise on health system data, public health data and population health data. They provided perspectives and insights on analytics, data management and privacy.

Specifically, the EAG advised on:

• strategic direction for the use of health data
• principles to guide the creation, collection, storage and use of data
• a practical and phased roadmap for implementing measures to address areas of greatest opportunity and impact

The EAG released 3 reports on health data, including its final report in April 2022. This report provided advice on developing a world-class, person-centered health data system. The foundational elements recommended by the EAG included:

• digital-age health data policies
• clear health data accountability and governance
• coherent and regulated interoperability standards (interoperability is the ability of different technologies to work well together)
• common language and health sector and public data literacy
• meaningful public engagement to build and sustain public trust

These foundational elements guided the development of Working together to improve health care for Canadians. This plan sets the path for improving health care in Canada, including a focus on modernizing the health system with standardized digital health and health data.