Kendall Ho- Provincial Virtual Care for Addressing Patient Emergencies at Their Finger Tips: the BC 811 Experience (XtraTrack Season 2025)

(14-05-2025 16:00)

Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding is a global phenomenon, resulting in admitted patients in the ED, and new patients waiting in the ED waiting rooms to be seen. Meanwhile, a significant portion of these patients in the waiting room could potentially be managed away from ED. How can telehealth and digital health assist in decongesting ED and support patients at their times of urgent needs? In Germany, 116 117 is designed to tackle this issue. This presentation will discuss about the Canadian approach through the lens of the province of British Columbia and its 8-1-1 virtual service. This pan-provincial digital front door aspires to improve patient experiences, reduce ED input volume, and improve patient safety through their health system journeys for optimizing patients and health system’s outcome. We will discuss the evidence to date on this 8-1-1 virtual care service, and how it integrates with the health system as a whole to alleviate the ED crisis in BC, and this line’s future directions. We will then explore opportunities of synergy between Germany and Canada in our respective contexts.

Dr. Kendall Ho, MD FRCPC FCAHS

Professor and lead, Digital Emergency Medicine Unit Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Medical Director, British Columbia Ministry of Health
811 Virtual Physicians Services

Dr. Kendall Ho is an emergency medicine specialist, Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Faculty of Medicine, and Lead the Digital Emergency Medicine Unit. He is the medical director of the BC Ministry of Health HealthLink BC virtual physician program, and clinical evaluation lead of the BC Real Time Virtual Support provincial virtual care services. His Digital Emergency Medicine research and knowledge translation work focus on virtual care, wearables and sensors, machine learning and artificial intelligence in urgent and emergency care, and multicultural engagement in digital health literacy. His body of research and educational work has been recognized with multiple awards, and received the BC Medal of Good Citizenship for his community work. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

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