During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of virtual care increased rapidly throughout the health care system in Canada as it was offered to maintain care delivery while physical distancing measures to control the spread of COVID-19 reduced in-person care. This rapid uptake highlighted different issues and uncertainties associated with delivering care virtually and the need for developing or improving approaches to guide the effective integration of virtual services within the health care delivery continuum.

This report provides an overview of continuous learning artificial intelligence (AI) as a medical device or as part of a medical device, including what they are, how they might be used, their benefits, and the potential challenges and opportunities they pose for regulation, assessment, and evaluation. Continuous learning AI for health care may have a cascading effect on national and international level, including reshaping and shifting the role of regulators and health technology assessment agencies.

Key Messages

• Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s health care system has experienced a dramatic shift toward virtual care. Patients with cardiac conditions are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes from COVID-19 infections, and for many, remote monitoring has been viewed as a safer form of health care delivery.
• This Policy Insight summarizes key facilitators and barriers to the implementation and expansion of remote monitoring programs for patients with cardiac conditions based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include:

The Health Technology Trends to Watch list covers a range of new and emerging non-drug health technologies relevant to different conditions, models of health care delivery, and tools used to improve patient care.

This project aims to:

Health-based mobile applications (“mHealth”) are downloadable applications on a smartphone or similar device for use in health care, either by the person directly using it or by a health care provider. This Horizon Scan summarizes the available information and provides an overview of health apps on smartphones that are not connected to specialized medical equipment, describing examples of emerging apps in different clinical areas, who they might benefit, and their operational issues.