Lakehead University and NOSM Receive $2 Million to Develop Health Services Virtual Organization

Earlier this week, Lakehead University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) announced the receipt of major development funding from CANARIE Inc. Part of a larger funding agreement valued at $15 Million, the funds will be used for their “Health Services Virtual Organization (HSVO)”.

The funding, awarded through CANARIE’s Network-Enabled Platforms Program, will be administered by Lakehead University and involves several partners, including NOSM, McGill University, IDEAL Consulting, National Research Council Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT Fredericton), Industry Canada’s Communications Research Centre (CRC Ottawa), Stanford University (US), and Innovation in Learning (IiL US).

The goal of HSVO is to provide an integrated collection of user-controlled online services that will enable the medical community to reduce costs while increasing the depth, standardization and objectiveness of patient treatment planning, team and individual preparedness, and professional evaluation.

Principal Investigator Dr. Rachel Ellaway, Assistant Dean of Informatics at NOSM, will direct the development of a focused collection of services supporting the planning, patient treatment, and team and individual preparedness in the operating room, emergency room, general practice clinics, and patients’ bedsides.

Dr. Rachel Ellaway sees the project as “having great potential to impact health care in Northern Ontario by leveraging advanced forms of cyber-infrastructure to address health inequities experienced by Canadians due to barriers of distance, cost of care, and access and availability of medical experts.”

CANARIE Inc., based in Ottawa, is Canada’s advanced network organization. It facilitates the development and use of its network as well as the advanced products, applications and services that run on it. The CANARIE network serves universities, colleges, schools, government labs, research institutes, hospitals and other organizations in a wide variety of fields in both the public and private sectors. By promoting and participating in strategic collaborations among key sectors, and by partnering with peer networks and organizations around the world, CANARIE Inc. stimulates and supports research, innovation and growth, bringing economic, social, and cultural benefits to Canadians.  The national organization was created in 1993 by the private sector and academia under the leadership of the government of Canada. CANARIE Inc. is supported by membership fees, with major funding of its programs and activities provided by the Government of Canada through Industry Canada.  More information may be found at www.canarie.ca