The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) will receive $3.5 million in federal funding to help create a new health care network in Western Canada in conjunction with all four western provinces.
The Western Economic Diversification Canada (WEDC) fund provided the funding to the SHA, as part of the federal government’s intention to form the CAN Health Network, a health and industry partnership designed to develop innovative technological solutions to address health care challenges, according to a provincial news release.
The SHA will lead the creation of the network and will work with the Alberta Health Services, the Manitoba Children’s Hospital Research Institute, the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary, and Vancouver Coastal Health.
“Saskatchewan has a long and storied history of developing innovative health-care solutions to meet the unique needs of its people. The Saskatchewan Health Authority is excited to be part of the CAN Health Network and to have a leadership role in the CAN Health West Network,” said Suann Laurent, SHA COO. “In keeping with our core value of collaboration, we look forward to partnering with our health and tech industry leaders as we continue finding innovative solutions to our health care challenges.”
FedDev Ontario will also receive $3.5 million to establish a CAN Health Ontario Network in southern Ontario.
This initiative will provide a range of benefits, such as:
- New health innovations introduced into the marketplace
- Highly qualified positions created and maintained
- Business expenditures in research and development
- Revenue generation for high-growth firms
- Small- and medium-sized enterprises assisted in gaining market access
- New technologies adopted by multiple health-care providers through the new shared procurement process
The CAN Health Network represents one of the largest health and industry partnerships in the country, said the news release. It is designed to enable health-care organizations to work directly with medical-technology companies to identify, develop, and scale solutions to common health system challenges.
Comprised of Canadian health-care organizations in the public and private sector, the network uses a co-ordinated, Canada-first approach to technology adoption to ensure solutions being adopted by Canadian health-care organizations address important challenges and are built by Canadian companies in collaboration with medical leaders, the release said.
Funding for the network is in place until 2022, with the next step to establish a project management and governance structure to support the initiative. Further expansion is planned for Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada.
The investment of $7 million in this new health-care network is part of the $20 million the Government of Canada is using to launch an integrated market for companies to invest in health and biosciences, explained the news release. The network will allow companies to work directly with health-care organizations to understand their needs and commercialize health technologies to meet those needs.
Through this integrated market, small- and medium-sized enterprises and leading start-ups will work with early adopter companies to collaboratively research, develop and refine Canadian medical technologies to make them market ready.
Health-care spending in Canada reached $253 billion last year — 11 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product — and the international market for medical technologies was estimated to be $500 billion annually, said the news release. This nationally integrated market will give made-in-Canada innovations easy access to a large, consolidated domestic marketplace.
“With market opportunities of this magnitude, the global health technology sector is growing rapidly in Canada and around the world,” added the news release, “and the CAN Health Network will position Canadian companies for success.”
For more information, visit the Saskatchewan Health Authority website at www.saskhealthauthority.ca.
