About eHealth Innovations

In 2012, two CIHR institutes, the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR) and the Institute of Aging (IA), launched the eHealth Innovations Initiative to promote research and innovation in digital health. The core objectives of the eHealth Initiative were to develop, integrate and evaluate, in collaboration with stakeholders, eHealth innovations that will improve the quality of outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of patient and population-centered care, and enhance Canada's position in digital health.

The eHealth Innovations Initiative placed emphasis on building partnerships between researchers, healthcare and health system communities (health providers, people with lived experience and health policy and decision makers), and health technology industry. Since the launch of the Initiative in 2012 there has been considerable change in the eHealth landscape, particularly as health systems adjusted to providing services during the COVID-19 pandemic. What is considered to be eHealth has broadened. Examples of eHealth innovations include, but are not limited to: virtual care, e-referral and e-consultations, personalized health care, patient portals, patient-held records, sensors/wearables, predictive modeling, home health monitoring, point of care diagnostics, decision-support tools (e.g., interactive and fit-for-purpose), data analytics, etc. Additionally, over time the lexicon has changed, and eHealth is now more commonly referred to as 'digital health'.

The eHealth Innovations Initiative was designed with the purpose of increasing access to health systems for patients, fostering cross-sectoral partnerships, building capacity, and improving efficiencies for greater cost effectiveness of service delivery. See the Summary Report for the results and impacts of ten years of eHealth funding.

The eHealth Innovations Initiative used a phased development approach to provide optimal research funding opportunities across several innovation stages.

The eHealth Initiative launched, in order: Catalyst Grant: eHealth Innovation in 2012, eHealth Innovation Catalyst Grant in 2013, eHealth Innovations Partnership Program (eHIPP) in 2014 (the initiative's flagship program), and the Spread and Scale of Existing Community-based Primary Health Care and eHealth Innovations in 2019.

In the 2023 federal budget, Canada invested close to $200 billion over 10 years to support the Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians Plan.

As part of that budget, $505 million was provided to the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Canada Health Infoway and federal data partners to work with provinces and territories to:

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