Working in private healthcare, we used a nation-wide Electronic Medical Records system that allowed for transparent information sharing when patients crossed provincial borders. If a patient was flying from Winnipeg to Toronto for a procedure, we could pull the chart up and see all of the notes and information we needed to inform the treatment plan. We were not waiting for faxes, navigating multiple log-ins, or asking patients to help us track down the information. Moving over to the public system, I experienced something similar to culture shock when I witnessed the various work-arounds clinical teams have to come up with to navigate regional, provincial, and national systems that do not connect to one another and are often quite duplicative.

As we work towards a connected health system, we must be careful about "push" vs. "pull" information management as too much information being pushed into a system risks generating confusion, safety risks and administrative burden. I hope to see a system similar to what I experienced earlier in my career, where clinical teams have the ability to pull in the information they need, when they need it and patients are not having to repeat the same story over and over again.