As Canada grapples with a fragmented healthcare system, industry leaders and health organizations are rallying behind a unified approach to data interoperability. A webinar on April 14, 2026, hosted by TECHNATION titled "The Canadian Core Data for Interoperability: Advancing a National Standard Through Collaboration," highlighted the collaborative effort the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), MEDITECH, and industry leaders, as well as provincial, territorial, and federal partners.
The webinar, moderated by TECHNATION Executive Director Elaine Huesing, featured presentations by Shannon O'Connor, Manager of Data Standards at CIHI, and Allie Anderson, Senior Regulatory Program Manager at MEDITECH. They addressed the shared challenge of fragmented health data and the importance of the Canadian Core Data for Interoperability (CACDI).
The Cost of a Disconnected System
Recent data from Statistics Canada, compiled by CIHI as part of its Shared Health Priorities (SHP) work, revealed that in 2025, while 69% of Canadians could access at least one type of electronic health information, only 13% reported having electronic access to core components of their health record. Furthermore, recent data from the Canadian Medical Association also revealed that 46% of physicians report experiencing burnout, exacerbated by the administrative burdens of an uncoordinated system.
At the same time, 52% of health providers report sharing health information electronically with providers outside of their practice. While this result is definitely encouraging, it's still only just over half of healthcare providers and varies significantly between provinces and territories.
The lack of connectivity can have fatal consequences. O'Connor pointed to the tragic case of Greg Price, a 31-year-old from Alberta who died due to delayed treatment for testicular cancer — an investigation found his death was a direct result of a disconnected system where clinicians lacked access to the right information at the right time.
A Standardized Solution: CACDI and Bill S-5
To combat these issues, CIHI recently released Version 2 of the CACDI which expands the national standard to 10 data categories and 55 core data elements. The CACDI acts as the baseline — the "what" — defining the standardized health data elements needed to support patient care across the Canadian healthcare system. It is co-designed with patients, clinicians, vendors, First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, and jurisdictional partners, and is designed to function as a component of the broader Pan-Canadian Health Data Content Framework.
A key aspect of the CACDI is that it is meant to be use case agnostic, and it expands incrementally over time via a transparent, established, and collaborative process. O’Connor stated, “The CACDI works in tandem with Canada Health Infoway’s CA Core+, which is a pan-Canadian set of FHIR profiles that dictate how the data is exchanged between systems.”
The push for standard adoption is being heavily supported by federal legislative efforts, notably Bill S-5, the Connected Care for Canadians Act, which aims to address data blocking and establish clear expectations for secure, interoperable data exchange.
The Power of a Common Language
Anderson provided a vendor’s perspective on the vital importance of nomenclature and standardized codes.
“Real interoperability moves healthcare from simply ‘sending data’ to sending data that the receiving system can understand, trust, and act upon safely,” she said. “Standard codes are crucial because they ensure consistent interpretation across all systems. Without them, various providers might record the same condition inconsistently — using terms like ‘heart attack,’ ‘MI,’ or ‘myocardial infarction,’ for example. Utilizing an ICD standard for a condition like this ensures these terms are aligned.”
This lack of unified standards means systems exchange data that cannot be reliably analyzed or flagged for crucial issues like drug interactions. The resulting problems include duplicate diagnoses, medication errors, and broken analytics.
Implementing accurate standards is essential because they:
- Allow for the de-duplication of data elements when consuming patient chart data.
- Enable formulary data to be uploaded accurately, ensuring appropriate flagging for drug interactions.
- Guarantee quality reporting by converting complex data into comparable metrics.
Anderson also noted that the increasing push to use AI in healthcare absolutely depends on data standardization — AI models trained on inconsistent data will inevitably produce unreliable and biased results.
Moving Forward Together
When designing the CACDI, O’Connor said, “In terms of our design principles, we've placed an emphasis on patient safety — this has really been our North Star. We've prioritized content based on health system information needs, and we've leveraged Canadian and international standards. It's really important to us that the CACDI is iterative and open.”
For nearly two years, CIHI, along with its Canadian colleagues, meet quarterly with colleagues from Australia and the US, drawing inspiration from both the US's core data for interoperability, so-called the USCDI, and Australia's clinical data for interoperability, the AUCDI.
“Interoperability is a team sport,” O’Connor continued. “But I think in this case it really is an international team sport and our country's health systems benefit from this degree of knowledge sharing and collaboration across borders.”
A central theme of the webinar was that standardizing Canada’s health data cannot be achieved in isolation. Achieving true interoperability will require coordinated timelines, mandates, and regulatory alignment to ensure that all vendors and healthcare organizations adopt the standards simultaneously.
She urged collaborative adoption among jurisdictions, vendors, and health system partners. Moving forward, CIHI plans to release a draft of CACDI Version 3 in September 2026, with a final version expected in March 2027, continuing the iterative journey toward a fully connected healthcare future for all Canadians