Sunnybrook expanding outpatient care at 1929 Bayview Ave. - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

IntroductionWe understand digital health solutions (DHS) as “information and communications technologies in medicine […] to manage illnesses and health risks and to promote wellness”1. DHS are widely considered to hold substantial potential for transforming health care delivery. Prior research has shown that DHS can improve clinical outcomes2, but also non-clinical aspects of health care delivery, such as the overall patient experience and service quality. For instance, DHS have been shown to enhance accessibility3, improve organizational processes4, and reduce costs5,6. Despite these advantages and a rapidly growing availability of DHS7, adoption in outpatient care remains comparatively slow. This is partly due to the structure of outpatient care with its typically smaller practices and limited organizational resources, for instance no dedicated IT or procurement units8,9. A central barrier to DHS adoption is the comparison of the efforts and costs for the implementation and maintenance against the effects of DHS10,11, which is a central consideration for practice owners and managers to select DHS for their practices as well as for payers and policymakers assessing DHS strategies.

Inside a quiet room at Sunnybrook’s Veterans Centre, Veterans and active Canadian Armed Forces Reserves physicians spoke candidly with the Right Honourable Louise Arbour during her recent visit. The Veterans shared personal stories about their service, including Brenda Reid who spoke about her time as a “Wren”, the pioneering women’s division of the Royal Canadian Navy created in World War II to release men for active sea duty. Nearby, Joe Duffy stood proudly beside his portrait from The Last Salute: Portraits of Remembrance, a collection capturing Sunnybrook’s centenarian veterans.