There are often debates about how we define the term eHealth. Because technology and health care are both such broad fields, bringing them together under one roof can be a challenge. To make things more complicated, the term eHealth is sometimes conflated with electronic health records. Though electronic health and medical records (EHR/EMR) are indeed facets of eHealth, at the eHealth Strategy Office we take a broader definition of the field, and explore the ways in which technology can impact health care by improving communities of practice between health professionals, facilitating online mentoring for aboriginal youth to ensure they can enter health sciences careers, to making clinical practice guidelines available on the iPhone.
For more information on definitions of eHealth, you can see the “What is eHealth?” page on our site. Also, in the video from the SPPH 581 eHealth Research Methods course below, our director, Dr. Kendall Ho, describes eHealth: what it is, and why it is so important to the future of health care.
http://video.med.ubc.ca/videos/RHYME/WhatIseHealth.flv