Virtual Care and Services
Scope:
Health Standards Organization (HSO) is developing a new edition of its Virtual Health standard, which will be renamed Virtual Care and Services. The new edition will focus on enabling high-quality, people-centred care in a virtual environment, using different modalities, that meets the care needs and preferences of people of all ages across all care services—be they publicly or privately funded organizations. The standard will provide clear requirements and accountabilities for 1) organizational leaders to govern and enable safe virtual services, 2) people and teams to experience personalized and safe virtual care encounters (including telehealth) 3) promoting continuous learning and quality improvement. The standard will uphold a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and cultural safety; coordinated care and integrated services; access to care for rural populations; and an improvement and outcomes-focused culture.
Project need:
This proposed new edition is being developed at the request of the CAN/HSO 83001 Technical Committee. The need and demand for virtual care and services was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and is rapidly growing as a critical component of an effective health care system. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual care and services, highlighting the need for an updated standard to reflect the new learnings and technological advancements. Additionally, changes in legislation, regulations, and governance of virtual care and services across jurisdictions has changed the landscape of healthcare delivery.
This new edition of the standard will address various benefits and risks related to virtual care and services that impact high-quality care, such as access, privacy and security, digital health literacy and quality and safety of care.
Note: The information provided above was obtained by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and is provided as part of a centralized, transparent notification system for new standards development. The system allows SCC-accredited Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), and members of the public, to be informed of new work in Canadian standards development, and allows SCC-accredited SDOs to identify and resolve potential duplication of standards and effort.
Individual SDOs are responsible for the content and accuracy of the information presented here. The text is presented in the language in which it was provided to SCC.