Telehealth and Health Informatics. The Journey Towards Convergence COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics Association and the Canadian Society of Telehealth Merge

Abstract

Canada has a long and strong history with health informatics and telehealth. With associations supporting each since 1976 for health informatics and 1998 for telehealth, the work of automation in health care has been well served by committed and capable professionals. Health informatics and telehealth must be seamlessly integrated to provide optimum service to care providers and their patients yet two worlds of telehealth and health informatics have grown up in silos. The respective implementation projects have been launched and delivered by separate departments or staff, the technologies have grown up on separate pathways, the funding has often come from distinct and different sources, the education and training has been delivered by different university departments, and the associations supporting the members and industry grew up separately. Recognizing that working together would begin to bridge the silos, the Canadian Society of Telehealth (CST) and Canada's Health Informatics Association (COACH) embarked on a journey to show leadership in integrating the two worlds, initially by through joint projects, and ultimately by merging the two organizations. This paper describes the rationale, process, benefits and lessons learned in creating a single association to serve the Canadian Telehealth and Health Informatics communities.