Healthcare has always been a top priority for Canadians – it is one of the few industries that impacts every person at every stage of their life – but COVID-19 has created greater focus on the systems and relationships that make up the circle of care. From doctor’s clinics and hospitals to retail pharmacy and long-term care, this past year has not only revealed how broad this circle is, but just how agile it can be with the right solutions in place. The crisis has spurred incredible examples of digital transformation and has ultimately challenged existing assumptions about how we operate and what is possible. More specifically, it has crystalized the need for improved data sharing across the many health stakeholders, from primary care to public health, and the value of AI and machine learning across data platforms.

While on a virtual visit to Canada last month, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella sat down with leaders from across Canada’s healthcare industry and public sector to discuss global trends, common challenges to healthcare transformation and opportunities for the future.

Data Interoperability

Each of Canada’s provinces and territories operate under different healthcare systems and privacy protocols; this has led to data segmentation and created a barrier to population-level data. According to Satya, there are two elements that need to be implemented to unlock the potential of this data for clinical use. The first is differential privacy, which simultaneously enables researchers and analysts to extract useful insights from datasets containing personal information and offers stronger privacy protections. This is achieved by introducing “statistical noise”. The noise is significant enough to protect the privacy of any individual, but small enough that it will not impact the accuracy of the answers extracted by analysts and researchers.

The second element, which can be added on top of differential privacy, is a regime of machine learning called federated learning. With this framework, the learning is done centrally, as well as locally. If this were to be applied in Canada, every province and territory could have its own data and the complexities of the centrally shared model can be minimized. We believe the combination of federated learning and differential privacy can be a technology infrastructure that can support countries like Canada in benefitting from population-level data insights without sacrificing privacy.

We’re seeing how this type of data sharing is possible, even across borders. As part of the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, BC Cancer and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are creating data sharing constructs, removing barriers to data discovery and data access which make breakthroughs in research difficult. The next step is determining how the data can be applied on the clinical side.

Creating better outcomes

When asked how the public sector should approach sharing data with the private sector, Satya noted that private healthcare organizations, like pharmaceutical companies, need access to clinical data to innovate in areas like precision medicine. Population-level data is needed to drive individual, personalized medicine – that’s the paradox. It starts with the public sector establishing the boundaries of policy, which should prioritize the health outcomes for citizens, and from there determining how a private company can participate in that ecosystem, for example by lowering costs and/or creating more personalized care.

It’s been inspirational to see healthcare end-to-end, with leaders across the public and private sector taking hold of digital tools to accelerate their mission. Canada’s healthcare community demonstrated unmatched responsiveness as they innovated to deliver personalized care to all Canadians – and this is only the start. There will continue to be a structural change in healthcare that will deliver better health outcomes and will ultimately support global economic recovery.  For more information on healthcare innovation, please visit http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-ca/industry/health

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CCC delivers unparalleled results, but is always looking for the most effective and efficient way to help clients. It uses outcome measurement and tracks client progress at every session, and its pre-pandemic client outcomes outperformed the published benchmark by 37 per cent. But in light of changed work practices forced by the pandemic, CCC had been experimenting with technologies for remote audio and video communications to broaden its counselling options. When in-office consultations were ruled out, staff already had ideas for best practices that could help keep services available, especially in light of heightened demand during these difficult times. The organization needed a secure solution that was easy for clients and counsellors from all cultural and economic backgrounds to use.

CCC decided to standardize on Microsoft Teams, making the solution available to administrative staff and all 65 in-house and student counsellors. “We migrated everybody into Teams and rolled it out within 36 hours,” says Chief Information Officer Neil Wagner. The rollout went very smoothly; counsellors booked appointments online, clients clicked provided links, and sessions took place in the browser without the need for additional software installation. Those who needed technical help received it very quickly, and counsellors themselves soon gained the confidence to help fix any issues: “I would say probably three quarters of the sessions were no problem. We just had to teach our counsellors enough so that they could be the tech support people for their clients,” adds Wagner. More recently, CCC added voice features (PSTN), rounding out the solution with Calling for Microsoft Teams to provide a seamless, unified communications experience for everyone at the Centre.

To date, more than 45,000 virtual counselling sessions have been successfully completed using Teams. For clients, the online meeting experience is not the same as its conventional in-office counterpart, but CCC data has shown it to be equally if not more effective. CCC has always conducted rigorous results and performance analysis, and CEO Dr. Robbie Babins-Wagner discovered that online consultations have actually provided a boost to counsellors’ effectiveness, creating better outcomes for clients. “Clients last year shared more mental health distress than people in the pre-pandemic time. With online counselling using Teams, their outcomes were equal, if not better than during pre-pandemic times or in-person care. So, we’re now doing online care by choice,” she says.

It was critical that CCC maintained its clients’ privacy on the new platform. Wagner insisted that security was paramount, and one of the main reasons Teams stood out from the other available technologies. In fact, he says emphatically, it may have been three of the reasons: “We could only select one solution for virtual communications, Teams was by far the best fit. And security, security, security!“ Dr. Babins-Wagner added that security and privacy are fundamental principles in counselling, particularly so at CCC. “I think the counsellors needed to have full confidence in the security of Teams—joining, during, and leaving a call. That’s what they’re grilled in. ‘How are we going to do this securely?’”

CCC now considers Teams a key tool in its counselling and education practice for collaboration among staff and students. After an easy deployment, the organization saw quick benefits in simplified management and swift adoption. Beyond face-to-face client sessions, Dr. Babins-Wagner notes she uses Teams Planner and sharing features to work with external partners and internal colleagues alike. And students get more secure, straightforward meetings and document sharing with their supervisors. Dr. Babins-Wagner thinks the CCC experience with Teams has made it a permanent part of future operations—it’s an effective, efficient way to reach more clients and achieve even better results in pursuit of the Centre’s mission. “We’re going to give clients a choice about whether they want to receive their services virtually or in person. And I expect that the majority of clients are going to want to do it virtually.”

Visit  Calgary Counselling Centre, and learn more about Microsoft Teams for healthcare organizations.

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While the pandemic may have encouraged faster adoption of virtual healthcare from consumers and providers alike, as the world attempts to move past the pandemic and return to more normalcy, virtual healthcare will remain an attractive option for easily accessible care. However, virtual health’s benefits extend beyond accessibility alone.

Improving the patient experience

A virtual health visit can seem intimidating to a patient their first time around, but Teams makes it an easy and seamless experience for anyone with an internet-connected device.

Whether located five minutes or five hours from their doctor, patients can join their appointment in seconds through a unique, secure link. Teams also sends appointment reminders and can even securely manage digital intake forms, minimizing confusion for patients.

Similar to an in-person visit, the patient waits for their appointment in a virtual waiting room. Once they’re admitted, they’ll be “face-to-face” with a provider. Following their appointment, Teams offers integrated post-care follow-up tools to keep documents in one convenient, secure place.

The entire experience, from booking the appointment and receiving appointment reminders, to forms leading up to and following the actual visit, happens within the Teams platform. This ensures all communications and documents come from one single source, alleviating patient confusion. When it’s time for the appointment, it takes just one click to join—no downloads, no installs, and no software licensing from the patient’s perspective, making it easy to use. And when you aren’t feeling well, that ease of access and simplicity to join your appointment and get the support and information you need is invaluable.

Enhancing collaboration and security for healthcare providers

From a provider standpoint, Teams’ benefits are multifaceted.
During appointments, clinicians can chat “face-to-face,” screen share as needed, send patient education videos, and even easily loop in remote specialists through three-way call functionality. This enhances the patient experience while saving time for everyone and enhancing real-time collaboration.

Multidisciplinary teams can collaborate and synchronize activities, ideas, and documents in a single place. Teams’ document management and versioning tools streamline processes and minimize time otherwise spent synchronizing various providers’ patient record updates and notes. It also enhances medical team collaboration and communication, while making patient follow-up activities and documents a breeze.

Importantly, this is all done with the utmost in security protocols. In addition to Microsoft’s state-of-the art general security measures, Teams includes precautions to protect patient health data and other regulated and ethics-sensitive data. For example, background blur helps safeguard protected health information that may display behind physicians during virtual visits. All messages are encrypted to protect patient data. Azure Active Directory manages identities and various user-level permissions, and multi-factor authentication and self-service password resets boost security while also minimizing demands on IT staff.

Virtual health grew 240% throughout the pandemic, and it continues to provide providers and patients lasting opportunities for collaboration, convenience, and enhanced accessibility. Read more about how Teams can help healthcare organizations in the full whitepaper at https://aka.ms/TeamsinHC

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According to the Canadian Cancer Society, nearly 1 in 2 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and the disease continues to be the leading cause of death in Canada – 1 in 4 Canadians will die of cancer or cancer-related illnesses. When it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, every day is critical. Cancer patients have very little room for miscalculation, delays, or human error.

Advancements in technology have led to new opportunities to improve cancer care with personalized treatment plans, also known as precision medicine – however, there are many challenges to identifying the most precise and effective treatment. Massive storage and compute power are required to analyze hundreds of thousands of cancer cells. Cancer researchers lack a shared data environment to bring together siloed datasets and the wealth of existing genomics research outcomes. Clinicians have also faced challenges in accessing the data from researchers to inform patient care.

Enter Drs. Benjamin Haibe-Kains and Trevor Pugh, both Senior Scientists at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN). They are leveraging Microsoft Azure as the foundation of their using machine learning tools to address these challenges and solve one of the most complex and deadly problems facing humans today.

Together, they are committed to bringing cancer research to clinicians in real time and are developing a shared data platform for precision medicine allowing clinicians to analyze large panels of cancer cells to determine the genomic aberrations that are predictive of drug response. This so-called companion diagnostics are crucial to devise personalized treatment plans with greater accuracy in mere minutes – something that in the past would not be possible for many anticancer therapies.

The Microsoft Cloud is at the heart of this breakthrough. Leveraging Microsoft’s cutting-edge Azure cloud technology, the shared database will be available to clinicians around the world. This incredible advancement in personalized treatment is quickly moving from research into real practice due to reduced processing time.

The ability to harness the power of complex data and AI at the point of care to provide a personalized treatment plan for cancer patients could improve their outcomes. Receiving the right plan the first time means better, faster, more accurate treatment, less likelihood of growing resistance to chemotherapy, and lower chance of relapse as the entire tumor is attacked.

In healthcare, Digital Transformation is an inherently people-oriented initiative – one that connects research innovation, trust, and a culture of collaboration to an external vision for patient care. At UHN, this is coming to life in the strong collaboration between the Microsoft team supporting UHN, the researchers at the lab developing the database, and the clinicians using the data – all with the singular focus on delivering the best possible care.

Learn more about how Microsoft is empowering organizations of all sizes and industries to innovate with Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the defining technology of our time. Organizations that take advantage of all that it has to offer are arming themselves to compete now and in the future. A recent study of European leaders highlights how businesses that are actively implementing AI are more than twice as likely to be high-growth companies. Those that are not considering their AI strategy risk being left behind. I engage with partners and customers from across Canada daily and they regularly share with me that change can be overwhelming.  When it comes to AI, many leaders do not know where to start. Curious companies committed to success need to look no further than the companies that are doing incredible innovative work right here in Canada, demonstrating what’s possible with AI. In March we brought business leaders together from across the country to showcase, celebrate and learn what’s next at Future Now in Toronto – a focused business decision maker event where we explore innovation in action.

We started and ended the morning with amazing young Canadian talent and it is clear the future is bright. Tanisha Bassan, an ‘older and wiser’ 18-year-old former Microsoft Canada high school intern and winner of the CES 2019 Young Innovators to Watch Award for her project in quantum machine learning, opened the day with her inspiring keynote on her journey and work to fight cancer. Samin Khan, an incredible Canadian student and innovator, closed the day with a demo of his simple, inexpensive prosthetic arm, smartARM. Samin and his innovation partner Hamayal Choudhry’s ingenuity earned them the grand prize at last year’s Microsoft’s Imagine Cup – a global competition of the best and brightest innovators from 33 countries. These students drove home for me what can be achieved when you embrace technology, approach a challenge with a growth mindset and are passionate about the results.

We simply must commit to accelerating the growth of AI in Canada so students like Tanisha, Samin and Hamayal can reach their full potential here at home. Microsoft Canada is investing more than $100 million in cloud technology so Canadian organizations have the tools they need to compete in the digital age. And yet, in spite of local investments and a proliferation of AI incubators and research centres in places like Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal, Canadian businesses are not taking advantages of the enormous opportunities made possible by AI. A recent study from Gartner found that Canada is a very poor 9 out of 10 when it comes to countries adopting and deploying AI in business applications. On top of this challenge, Canadian employers are facing an enormous skills gap in the digital labour force. So how should we address this incredible challenge and ensure growth for the Canadian economy?

The solution is twofold. Not only does the Canadian workforce need the skills to work in AI, but Canadian businesses need to actively adopt AI to provide the interesting and innovative work that will keep skilled workers and innovators in Canada. We are seeing amazing innovations, life changing and life-saving, happening in every sector that will inspire our future Canadian AI workforce.  A terrific proof point is the sheer number of Canadian organizations recognized by Microsoft to receive AI for Earth grants. Many innovators stand out and we heard from several at Future Now:

Benjamin Haibe-Kains, a Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at Toronto’s University Health Network, and his team are working to develop a shared database for clinicians to run biopsy results that leverages AI and the Microsoft Cloud to assist in determining personalized treatment plans for cancer patients. An initiative to enhance patient care and, ultimately, save lives.

And Humza Teherany, Chief Technology and Digital Officer at MLSE, is using data and the cloud to completely transform the fan experience and help Toronto sports fans get closer to the teams they love both in and outside of the arena.

We also provided a sneak peak at the amazing innovations that are possible with mixed reality with a demo of the recently launched HoloLens 2. The digital world has gone beyond two-dimensional screens and entered the three-dimensional world. We are seeing a new ecosystem of Mixed Reality Partners evolve, including partners like Kognitiv Spark who is working with the Canadian Army and Air Force to infuse Mixed Reality solutions and HoloLens into training support services, to ultimately improve operations and advance communications. The possibilities are truly endless.

Today was about showcasing these leading-edge examples and to helping others realize the value that AI and the power of cloud computing can bring to an organization. It was also about providing the insights organizations need to develop a new strategy and unlock the full potential of AI and machine learning.

For many business leaders, events like Future Now are just the start of their digital transformation journey. Because of this, we’ve recently launched AI Business School, a free comprehensive AI business training that helps organizations define an AI strategy, enable an AI-ready culture and understand the implications of responsible AI in business.

With all the innovation on display and the enthusiasm I heard from attendees about what’s in store, I know we are on the path to incredible and life changing innovation right here in Canada, but we need to act now. Our keynote speaker Futurist Jim Carroll said, “Do something. The time is now. The future is going to be here before you know it,” and he’s absolutely right.

Let’s continue to partner, to imagine and to bring our aspirations to life. Future Now is all about unlocking the art of what is possible, now lets go make it happen!

Learn more about how you can empower innovation with Microsoft AI.

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When ThoughtWire was founded in 2009, CEO Mike Monteith endeavoured to reduce the burden on healthcare providers. He knew through first-hand experience that the overload of information and on-the-job realities compromised the ability of practitioners to deliver the best possible care to patients. In the 10 years since its founding, ThoughtWire has worked to deliver on this promise, developing an advanced suite of operations performance management software that uses AI and machine learning to enable the frontlines of healthcare to act fast. The ThoughtWire smart hospital solutions work as intelligent assistants in support of the healthcare industry.

ThoughtWire’s EarlyWarning solution takes advantage of electronic medical record (EMR) data to assess patients who might be at risk of cardiac arrest. Early detection leads to better outcomes for patients—statistics show that once a patient deteriorates to cardiac or respiratory arrest, the chances of survival drop to approximately 20 percent. The EarlyWarning app analyzes the data for trends to make educated predictions about a patient’s trajectory. By connecting with a hospital or healthcare center’s staff directory and real time location systems (RTLS), the ThoughtWire solution alerts the right people with critical patient information when they need it. In this way, not only is the platform supporting a more proactive approach to healthcare, it is also facilitating a smoother flow of information that gets the right data into the right hands before it is too late.

ThoughtWire partnered with Microsoft to support the platform using Microsoft Azure cloud services, including Azure Active Directory. According to Monteith, Azure provides the rigour and breadth of support his team needs to deliver unwavering service. The ThoughtWire team also puts a great value on Microsoft’s dedication to data privacy and security. Given the highly sensitive nature of patient information, this priority had to come first.

ThoughtWire’s partnership with Microsoft has encouraged the company to set its sights on expanding to new regions around the world. With a strong vision, there is nothing stopping the company from bringing its EarlyWarning app to patients and healthcare providers on all continents.

Learn more about Microsoft’s Partnership with ThoughtWire

Hear more from ThoughtWire

Microsoft News Centre post by Jason Hermitage

Learn more about Microsoft for Healthcare in this blog.

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We’ve seen some fantastic advancements in healthcare in Canada over the years. People are living longer and they’re getting the treatment they need. So why do we continue to experience long wait times in the Emergency Departments across Canada which lead to a “Crowding” or “Hallway Health” problem? Why is patient attachment to family physicians still a journey we are trying to solve? These all contribute to strains not only on patients and patient centered healthcare but also on those that are providing care such as nurses, doctors and clinicians.

So, what can we do about this? How can we do things differently? How can we use technology to help solve these problems and ensure patients are receiving the care they need, when they need it?

Data can help!

Imagine if clinicians could proactively identify at risk patients analyzing their medical records, data from smart devices to provide personalized care, improve treatment regimens and make timely interventions to reduce risk of hospitalization.

Imagine being able to leverage IoT devices to help alert family and care team members if a patient is experiencing abnormal symptoms, and proactively respond with treatment or care visits.

Imagine being able to use artificial intelligence to help physicians in determining diagnosis and quickly review test results from an x-ray, bloodwork, or ultrasound, to help prioritize patient follow-ups to those that have an urgent need.

Healthcare is sitting on a mountain of data, so the question becomes, how can we leverage it?

In the latest episode of The Accelerate Podcast, we break down how we can leverage data, machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve healthcare as we see it today, including a few uses cases of the early adopters of these technological advancements. Check us out on Soundcloud and iTunes! It’s a very exciting time for the world of healthcare, and we have a great opportunity transform the care continuum across the country.

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When it comes to groceries, Canadians want it all – a big selection of high-quality food at low prices (and with sales and loyalty benefits with purchase). Couple that with the increasing desire for food to come from local and ethical sources and for organic or prepared foods, it’s no wonder that Statistica estimates annual retail sales of food and beverage in Canada at $188 billion.

While other retail has experienced a digital transformation, grocery shopping has mainly remained unchanged since the dawn of the grocery store: Canadians travel to stores, browse aisles, wait in line to purchase and then transport everything home. With variables in weather, perishable foods, complex food safety requirements and the traditionally high-frequency, low-volume business model of food service, full-service grocery delivery has remained out of reach.

Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery, or SPUD, is changing that simple truth. Building on their roots as a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) company, SPUD delivers more than just fresh produce: the catalogue now includes a full range of groceries, including produce, dairy, bakery, meat, seafood, packaged goods and ready-to-eat meals. The company runs an online store with a small, high-turnover inventory, so food items don’t expire or get damaged on the shelf; with perishables, SPUD only orders based directly on customer needs, so they don’t over-order short-shelf life items. The result is dramatically lowered food waste.

And it doesn’t stop there: SPUD has offered its Food-X-Urban Delivery platform to local companies to help make delivery a reality. Housed in a new facility in Burnaby, other grocery retailers can access SPUD’s industry-leading technology, warehousing, home delivery, and food preparation platform. Integrating directly with the retailer’s point of sale systems to provide live visibility of inventory, allowing orders to be fulfilled swiftly and efficiently.

So how does it all work? SPUD uses state-of-the-art technology to facilitate their full operations. With a proprietary inventory management tool built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, the company has end-to-end visibility into operations and analytics. Combined with Office 365 and Azure cloud services, SPUD takes full advantage of Microsoft integration and scale.

Read here to learn more on how SPUD uses AI, ebikes and Microsoft Cloud!

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Microsoft’s intelligent cloud platform and services lay the trusted foundation for solutions that benefit patients, that empower health professionals and researchers.  And how the cloud empowers health takes many and fascinating forms.  It’s how a researcher creates a prototype watch that enables a graphic designer diagnosed at 29 with Parkinson’s disease, to draw a straight line — and write her name — for the first time in years.  It is how applied AI allows oncologists to plan treatment with better accuracy. It’s how to enable one million people to receive their ideal personalized treatment with an individual pharmacogenomics profile. It’s how cognitive capabilities on top of electronic medical records allow to detect, long before it happens, the likelihood of high blood pressure, allowing preventative care and potentially saving $50 billion. These and plenty more stories of empowered patients, researchers and clinicians signal a more profound transformation that is bound to happen.

As intelligent cloud platforms and intelligent edge applications get adopted across industries and business processes, health digital transformation needs to go hand in hand with empowering health services’ policies, empowering cultures and mindsets. That is where we need to pause, ask questions and connect. Decisions taken now – for example on GDPR and health will govern life-changing moments for European citizens and patients for years and even decades to come.

• To empower health, we need policies that harness health data for better outcomes, overcoming the lack of clarity around how secondary data brings positive impact on people’s health and how this goes hand in hand with patient privacy and security.
• To empower health, we need to put forward “Cloud-first” health policies as a guiding framework to innovation and procurement.
• To empower health, we will benefit from new research on a new ethical framework for health data and “data donation”. First movers like Vivli, lead the way in purpose-driven data sharing to enhance scientific discovery & public trust.
• To empower health, we need Member States to adopt policies or support Codes of Conduct aligned with global security standards and best practices.

Ultimately, to empower health means to transform health systems, to change organizational models and to imagine an better future.  Microsoft has been on that journey –  It takes deep empathy and a new culture of innovation to empower every patient and every organization to achieve healthier lives.

For more information on Microsoft’s perspective on digital transformation in healthcare, download our whitepaper.

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Outsourcing is an important component of an organizations evolving service delivery model, used to enhance company capabilities and allow IT to support operations and enable both business and citizen services.

Since its inception, this model has been evolving. It started with companies like EDS outsourcing entire organizations IT Operations to the move to multi-sourcing – working with multiple alternate service delivery partners for different “swim lanes” such as desktop, data centre, network, service desk, etc. We have witnessed significant changes but none more profound than the disruption cloud computing brings.

Digital transformation will never be seamless but combining best practices with outsourcing can produce great results.

Companies like Uber and Airbnb have disrupted via the digital business model. That disruption is far reaching and includes the business model for IT Operations, including how organizations design their own operations models, shared services and which components they elect to outsource.

Five key things to consider when looking at how Cloud Economics impacts IT Outsourcing:

1. Viewpoint – Traditionally IT Operations was seen from an infrastructure lens of what it supported (i.e. physical servers or virtual machines). While infrastructure has a place in a hybrid model, that primary focus now shifts to the end application or solutions being provided.
2. Costs – Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) decreases costs at the time of move and on an ongoing basis as the environment is continually optimized for the cloud. This causes a shift from Capital to Operating Expense models.
3. Capabilities – Freeing up spend as well as combining the data with new cloud platform capabilities creates new opportunities to invest in business enablement and innovation of differentiating capabilities. Plan for it.
4. Solutions – How we think about solutions changes from standalone customized to standardized cloud-based frameworks built upon and aggregating different cloud platforms.
5. Operations – The requirements and responsibilities of managing IT Operations changes to reflect the new design of these environments.

Enabling our customers and partners

Our mission at Microsoft is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. The Cloud Era of IT Outsourcing is key to enabling the full benefits of our cloud services.

Our Enterprise Services and Partner teams are working with the rest of Microsoft, our customers and partners to make this a reality. This includes helping our customers define the right strategy and model for their new environment as well as how to transition. We are doing this in partnership with our key partners including enabling our traditional strategic outsourcers to transform their models as well as assisting the development of new cloud managed service providers.

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