For most of the last twenty years, the headline measure of digital health in Canada was adoption: did clinicians have an electronic record or not? Statistics Canada's latest numbers suggest that question is largely answered. The harder question now is whether those systems can talk to each other.
What the survey found
The Survey on the Use of Digital Technologies by Health Care Providers, released on March 30, 2026, asked nurses, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, family physicians and specialists about their use of digital health systems during 2024. The territories were not included.
- Access is nearly universal. 92% of providers had access to a digital health system, rising to 97–98% for physicians and nurse practitioners.
- Exchange is not. Only 52% of providers with access to patient information used a digital system to send or share it outside their main practice setting. The range by province was wide, from 72% in Alberta to 36% in Quebec.
- Barriers are the norm. 78% reported at least one barrier to sharing patient information — 85% in rural and remote areas compared with 78% in urban ones.
- Integration tops the list. Half of providers (50%) cited insufficient integration between digital health systems. 46% said their systems could not send information outside the practice at all, and 22% pointed to time-consuming or multiple sign-ins.
In other words: nearly everyone has the tools, about half use them to share information beyond their own walls, and the most common reason given is that the systems are not connected.
What it means for IT planning
Measure exchange, not installation
If your digital health scorecard still counts licences, users or modules live, it is measuring the problem Canada has mostly solved. Add measures that track information leaving and arriving: referrals sent electronically, discharge summaries received by the next provider, results that reach the ordering clinician without a fax. Those numbers show where care actually breaks down.
Map where information leaves your organization
Most organizations know their internal interfaces well and their external ones poorly. List every point where patient information crosses a boundary — to community pharmacies, primary care, home care, other hospitals, provincial repositories — and note how each one works today. The paper and fax routes on that list are your integration roadmap.
Treat sign-on as a clinical issue
One provider in five named multiple or slow sign-ins as a barrier. Single sign-on, badge tap and launching other systems in the patient's context are rarely the most exciting line items in a capital plan, but they give time back to clinicians on every shift and they are usually cheaper than another application.
Write integration into the contract
When you buy or renew a system, integration requirements belong in the agreement, not the sales presentation. Name the standards you expect (HL7 v2 and FHIR among them), the specific systems it must exchange with, who builds and maintains each interface, and what happens when a provincial repository changes its specifications. A vendor that is confident in its integration will put it in writing.
Plan for your partners' capability, not just your own
Exchange needs two ends. The rural and community gap in the survey is a reminder that your referral partners may be working with less capable systems and fewer IT staff. An integration plan that assumes everyone on the other end looks like a large hospital will stall at the first community clinic.
The bottom line
Canada's adoption problem has largely become an integration problem. The organizations that do well over the next few years will be the ones that plan, buy and measure with that in mind. If you are working through an integration roadmap, we are happy to talk it through.
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily, “Survey on the Use of Digital Technologies by Health Care Providers, 2025,” March 30, 2026; and StatCan Plus, “How digital health tools are giving providers more time to care,” May 28, 2026. Figures refer to the 2024 reference year and exclude the territories.