Breaking Down Barriers: How Toronto’s Smile Digital Health is Making Healthcare Data Work for Canadians

When Canadians walk into a hospital, pick up a prescription, or visit a doctor, they expect  their medical records are readily available to the professionals treating them. The reality is far more complicated. In Canada, health data is fragmented, stored in different formats across hospitals, pharmacies, and provincial systems that don’t always talk to each other. That disconnect slows down care, increases costs, and creates unnecessary barriers between patients and their providers.

This is where Smile Digital Health, a Toronto-based health technology company, is making a difference. By building a modern, standardized platform that allows health data to be easily shared between systems, Smile is helping Canada’s healthcare providers work smarter, reducing inefficiencies, improving patient outcomes, and strengthening the country’s digital health infrastructure.

Canada’s healthcare system was built on the principle of universal access, but the way information flows through the system hasn’t kept up. Each province operates its own health network, and within those networks, hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies often use different systems to store and manage health records.

This patchwork approach means that:

• Doctors don’t always have access to a patient’s full medical history, leading to unnecessary repeat tests and delays or gaps in care.
• Patients don’t always have control over their own records, making it harder to manage prescriptions or seek care when moving between provinces.
• Frontline healthcare workers spend too much time on administrative tasks, manually entering data or tracking down records that should be instantly available.

In a world where banking, shopping, and communication have all gone digital, healthcare has lagged behind—but Smile Digital Health is helping to change that.

Smile Digital Health’s FHIR-native Health Data Platform is already powering interoperability across Canada’s three largest healthcare systems, enabling them to securely store and exchange patient information in real time.

Unlike traditional systems that trap data and processes in silos, Smile’s platform translates health information into a common digital language—a technology standard known as FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). This allows:

• Hospitals and clinics to exchange comprehensive and up-to-date patient records more efficiently, reducing errors and improving continuity of care.
• Patients to access their own health data through digital portals, putting them in control of their medical history.
• Pharmacies to integrate prescription records with other health providers, preventing dangerous drug interactions and ensuring up-to-date medication tracking.

For one of Canada’s largest provincial healthcare systems, Smile’s engine processes over 40 million health data transactions per day, making it one of the most scalable and reliable digital health solutions in the country.

The need for modern, connected healthcare data has never been greater. Canada is facing a growing shortage of healthcare workers and an increasing demand for virtual care, especially in rural and Indigenous communities where access to specialists is limited.

“Healthcare isn’t just about doctors and hospitals—it’s about making sure the right information is available at the right time to the right people,” says Duncan Weatherston, CEO of Smile Digital Health. “We’re helping Canadian healthcare providers work smarter by breaking down the barriers that slow down care.”

Canada has a long history of pioneering healthcare advancements, from the discovery of insulin to breakthroughs in medical imaging. Now, as digital health becomes the backbone of modern care, there is an opportunity for Canada to lead again—not just in delivering healthcare, but in building the technology that powers it.

Smile Digital Health is proving that Canada doesn’t need to rely on foreign health tech giants to modernize its systems. By developing open, interoperable digital health solutions, Smile is ensuring that Canada’s healthcare system remains efficient, accessible, and ready for the future.

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This article is part of CCI’s new “By Canadian Innovators” series, which showcases how members of the Council of Canadian Innovators work with homegrown companies to fuel their growth and make Canada more prosperous. Each story in this series highlights the unique contributions of these companies to building a more prosperous, innovation-driven economy. To learn more about the companies CCI works with to build a more prosperous Canada, visit our member directory.