Publication
Ireland
On 31 October 2023, the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023 (the “Act”), which establishes a new foreign direct investment ("FDI") screening regime in Ireland, was enacted.
Canada | Publication | August 22, 2024
The Government of Canada recently introduced Bill-72, the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Act), to promote the secure transfer of health information and prevent data blocking. The Act is designed to support the government’s initiative to establish an interoperable healthcare system and will permit the Ministry of Health to establish new regulations, set up a system to receive complaints, verify compliance and apply administrative monetary penalties for non-compliance.
Health information technology encompasses hardware, software, integrated technologies, intellectual property and upgrades for creating, maintaining, accessing, using or exchanging electronic health information or for supporting these functions. The Act applies to all vendors in the health information technology space (any that license, sell or supply as a service). The Act aims to facilitate the creation of a single pan-Canadian technical standard for data exchange – a critical feat if successful, given that Canadian health services are delivered across different provincial and territorial healthcare systems.
The Act will only apply in provinces or territories that do not have at least substantially similar requirements to those established under this Act and Canada’s federal privacy framework. Currently, most of these jurisdictions do not have similar or more stringent provisions than what is being proposed, meaning we could see a much wider application of the Act than that seen with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
To facilitate the protected and secure exchange of electronic health information across various systems, all vendors will be required to adopt common standards. In particular, the Act will regulate interoperability and prohibit data blocking.
The bill is currently awaiting its second reading in the House of Commons. We will continue to monitor any developments. There will be opportunities for industry stakeholders to provide input on the direction of the legislation, and if passed, on crafting the regulations. In the meantime, the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) and Canada Health Infoway are addressing Canada’s interoperability requirements. The CIHI is developing a Pan-Canadian Health Data Content Framework and is currently soliciting feedback on this data content framework.4
Government Bill (House of Commons) C-72 (44-1) - First Reading - Connected Care For Canadians Act - Parliament of Canada, s. 5(2)(a).
Publication
On 31 October 2023, the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023 (the “Act”), which establishes a new foreign direct investment ("FDI") screening regime in Ireland, was enacted.
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