IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The City is working with a number of partners with the aim of modernising services to make it easier for businesses, homeowners and permit applicants.

The City of Vancouver is spearheading the use of digital credentials to reduce the need for manual verification steps in permitting and licencing services.

This work is being done in collaboration with Technical Safety British Columbia (BC), Land Title and Survey Authority of BC (LTSA) and the Ministry of Citizens’ Services.

For patients in rural or remote places where there are no family doctors or specialists, or for those with limited mobility, it’s a remarkable technological advancement. Doctors don’t have to travel, nor do patients, and medical advice is delivered quickly.

With the exception of the My eHealth portal, which is for patients, all these databases are accessible only by caregivers according to security protocols that differ by health region. Physicians at hospitals, for example, can access a patient's laboratory test results throughout the province through their electronic health record.

The government of British Columbia, Canada, had a problem. The province’s CareCard technology — the identity card BC residents use to access health services — was more than 20 years old and had never been significantly updated. Even worse, the number of CareCards issued significantly outnumbered the population of the province (4.5 million).

The expected global market size for smart cities is $1.565 trillion (cumulative) by 2020, out of which smart governance is expected to be about 12% – $180 billion. The market for electronic government services is especially strong in emerging countries which are racing to modernize their public sector and transform citizen service delivery. International institutions like the World Bank, IMF, ADB etc., are encouraging emerging countries to become efficient, transparent and accountable, and are providing significant amounts of funding for their e-government initiatives. Furthermore in the North American market, there is a call for governments to modernize their systems to deliver better services in an integrated fashion with better efficiencies, while reducing their overall costs. Imex Systems Inc.’s offerings are capable of achieving these goals, as it provides all the pre-built components required in building an effective e-government.

Live chat improves customer service in Planning & Development

The City of Calgary offers many services to Calgarians and customers. Effectively delivering those services while creating an efficient and enjoyable customer experience was at the forefront of the new Planning & Development online chat tool.

This feature allows a homeowner or business owner to connect with a City of Calgary planning service technician for information about the Land Use Bylaw, the Licence Bylaw, and the application and permitting process.

• Data is driving the world's most powerful tech companies - but it will also shape cities of the future
• In Canada, the Sidewalk Labs smart city experiment has drawn criticism
• So how do we establish data governance that meaningfully involves citizens for the good of all?

We live in a world where information has been transformed into one of the world’s most precious commodities. Data is a significant driver of our economies and the backbone of the world’s most powerful technology companies.

The reports from the United Kingdom reinforce concerns that Canada Health Infoway’s blueprint may not be practical or achievable, says Norm Archer, professor emeritus/special advisor at the eBusiness Research Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “They should not try to implement it in the short term. To set out with a highly centralized system and try to extend it downwards [towards patients and clinicians] doesn’t work.”

"The City of Toronto is the largest of the 17 municipal government partners of epost and we are excited that it is taking the lead to expand the number of citizen services available through us," says Kerry Munro, Group President, Digital Delivery Network at Canada Post. "For Torontonians it offers another convenient way to manage household affairs anytime, anywhere and from any device while supporting the City of Toronto's need to be more cost efficient."

The City of Toronto's website ranked first in content and second overall behind Seoul, South Korea's municipal website. Toronto improved from tenth place to second in the 2009 report for digital governance. It was the third most usable municipal website in 2011, but did not make the top 10 cut in privacy and security or social engagement.

The City of Vancouver was recognized Tuesday night at the 2018 IT World Canada Digital Transformation Conference and Awards Ceremony in Toronto, winning in the Large Public Sector Transformation category for its Digital Strategy.

Vancouver is the first city in Canada to develop and implement a digital strategy and the first to hire a Chief Digital Officer. The four-year strategy, implemented in 2013 has seen the City go from having low digital maturity relative to other global cities to now being a template and model for cities around the world looking to take their digital footprint to the next level.

The people who work in our health system continue to pursue a number of major thrusts designed to improve health-care delivery - focusing on areas such as patient-centred care, strengthening access to quality care, encouraging collaborative teams, and improving productivity. The common thread among all of these initiatives is that they require information technology to reach their full potential.

The increased pace of digital transformation during the pandemic will help cities recover and thrive in the future, said two mayors from the Toronto area speaking at ITWC’s Technicity GTA conference.

“The technical innovation that’s happened is a tool to help us move forward,” said Allan Thompson, mayor of Caledon. “It’s basically just like what the automobile has done, what the aircraft has done in the last century. I think this innovation is the new wave of the industrial revolution.”

At least Ian Wilson hopes so. The Stratford Institute executive director sounded a call to action after painting a fairly bleak picture of Canada's competitive position as a digital nation.

"We're slipping in terms of productivity, in terms of our use of this technology, and we need to do something about it," said Wilson as he presented the findings of his Stratford Report 2011.

That is evident when you consider the staggering amount of personal detail that half a billion people have divulged on Facebook. Also the federal government now routinely allows you to store and access some very private information online, such as your income tax return. However, the most ambitious plan of all is to have the medical history or every Canadian accessible online. It is a concept filled with great hope marred by some notable failures, and it relies on everyone's trust in the system.

Canada Health Infoway has invested almost $1.6 billion towards 280 health information technology projects in the last decade, but Canada is far behind other Western countries in adopting electronic health records. "As of 2009, only 36% of Canadian physicians were using an electronic health record, as compared with more than 90% of physicians in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Netherlands," writes Dr. Robyn Tamblyn, Department of Medicine, McGill University and Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, with coauthors.

An electronic health record system should be the backbone of health care reform in Canada and more must be done to speed up the implementation of this initiative across the country. Furthermore for this system to be put in place effectively, doctors and front line health care workers and administrators must be encouraged to play a more active role. These are the findings of an innovative new study assessing the effectiveness Canada Health Infoway's e-health plan. The study, which was conducted by scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University, was published today in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A study done for Canada Health Infoway, the federally funded organization set up to monitor and improve the use of information technology across Canada's health care system, has found that increased use of electronic medical health records has saved $1.3 billion over the last six years.

“This is the culmination of a great deal of work, including the development of a number of systems to feed patient information into eChart, and it is very exciting to see it all come together,” said Oswald. “As more sites become linked to eChart, it will be possible for a person’s key health information to travel with them to different health providers across the province.”

Three years ago this month the auditor general of Ontario issued a report highly critical of eHealth Ontario’s progress, spending, and lack of strategy. Since then, a new management team and board of directors have been working to turn around the agency and deliver real progress.