1997-12-01|CANARIE HEN

01 | Project Name

• MediCanada Directory Service

• Point of Contact
  • Go Simon Sunatori, P.Eng., M.Eng.

  • 65, des Parulines
  • Hull (Québec)
  • CANADA J9A 1Z4

  • World-Wide Web ......... http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/GS.Sunatori/
  • E-mail ................. GS.Sunatori@HyperInfo.CA
  • Telephone .............. +1-819-595-9210
  • Facsimile .............. +1-819-595-9229

02 | Description of the Applicants

• HyperInfo Canada Inc. <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/>
  • The Lead Contractor for this project is a federally incorporated for-profit corporation (Business Number 896068467) specialising since 1989 in Research and Development of Knowledge Service Applications in Cyberspace and on the Information Superhighway. The award-winning World-Wide Web site HyperInfo Knowledge Power Centre pioneers on-line knowledge publishing with pay-for-value electronic commerce on the Internet.

  • HyperInfo Canada Inc. will develop the system by integrating the directory database with World-Wide Web on the Internet. The company presently has 1 permanent full-time employee, and its annual income is about $20 000 CAD. The work will be performed in Canada's Capital Region.

03 | Description of the Proposed Project

• Products or Applications to be Developed
  • MediCanada Directory, a fully bilingual (English, French) searchable directory of physicians in Canada, will be developed as an integrated Consumer Health Care Information system. The on-line value-added service will be made accessible via World-Wide Web (WWW) on the Internet as a single point-of-entry to Personal Health Care for Canadian residents. Each physician can inform potential patients of his/her qualification, background, philosophy of service, etc.

  • The system employs an intelligent system to find a personal physician from input parameters. The system provides relevant attributes such as gender and language of the physician in a client-centred service model.

• Development Work to be Undertaken
  • A system integrating a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) with WWW will be designed and implemented. Specifically, the user interface will be an HTML form on the client web browser. The HTTP web server will contain either a server plug-in architecture or a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) as a link to the RDBMS.

  • The main focus of the development would be a sophisticated schema for the RDBMS entries. The relational database will be populated with information provided by the physicians who subscribe to the directory service.

• Innovative Aspects of Deliverables
  • A unique technique makes the RDBMS data mutually exclusive for efficient operation, and reduces redundancy and duplication. For example, the source data in the RDBMS on the web server would be coded in language-independent format, so that the translation table can dynamically generate, from a single source, human-understandable data to the client web browser. A meta-language technology called Interlinguish may be used for this purpose.

  • A cutting-edge intelligent selection algorithm would incorporate some elements of fuzzy logic to assemble a personalised HTML document from knowledge packets stored in the RDBMS.

• Degree of Technological, Financial or Market Risk
  • Technical risk is medium, and includes scalability of speed of access to the system. The system will employ international standards where applicable.

  • Financial or market risk is high, given the uncertainty in physicians's income level.

  • Thus, the project could not proceed without CANARIE funding.

• Specific Area of Focus
  • The MediCanada Directory project focuses on Health Care and Quality of Life. Specifically, it explore a new model of finding a suitable physician through innovative ways of enhancing access, presentation, exchange and/or utility of Consumer Health Care Information system.

• Schematics and Figures

  

  

04 | Contribution to CANARIE's Mission

• HyperInfo Knowledge Power Centre <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/> has effectively demonstrated on-line publishing on the World-Wide Web, as evidenced by the 1996 Canadian Internet Special Achievement Award for "Best Internet Publication (electronic)". However, current on-line publishing is limited to the presentation of static knowledge content, even in non-linear hypertext document.

• Today, so-called "Search Engines" are recognised as an important method of finding web pages with particular topics. However, some of them index every web page in existence regardless of the quality or focus of the information, while other directories subjectively filter web pages through human intervention.

• The MediCanada Directory project will deliver dynamic knowledge from the web site linked to high-quality knowledge bases. Thus, the critical aspects of Canada's communications and information infrastructure will benefit from high signal-to-noise ratio when a small amount of high-quality knowledge is transmitted and received as opposed to a large amount of mostly irrelevant data. The philosophical analogy to represent this situation is "Reduce/Reuse/Recycle information unless there are new pieces of knowledge".

• The MediCanada Directory project will facilitate the development of next-generation advanced knowledge services for future Health Care marketplace reforms in Canada. The development of such a networking application will contribute to the Canadian economy through innovative service concepts and unique, broad social benefits. This commercialised service would ideally be operated by a small-sized Canadian enterprise.

05 | Description of Benefits

• A vast amount of medical information is already available on the Internet, and more health information networks such as "Canadian Health Iway" are being announced. However, the most important aspect of personal health care, i.e., finding a suitable physician, remains a black art.

• Today, the primary methods of finding a family doctor are "word of mouth" and Yellow Pages because Canadian physicians are not allowed to advertise their practices. Usually, several telephone calls are required because many physicians are no longer accepting new patients, one requires special expertise from a family doctor, or one prefers to specify a male or female physician. Thus, there are significant potential savings through improved management and administration by the introduction of an integrated directory of Canadian physicians.

• The recent health care reform proposal by the Government of Ontario to force its residents to use 1 (one) family doctor with a contract highlights a need for a service that helps identify a suitable physician in Canada. Well-organised structured directory of physicians's Home Pages would make unique contribution by providing relevant information to potential patients.

• The MediCanada Directory service addresses access to health services from remote or under-served areas or segments of the population who would try to find a suitable physician for tele-medicine consultation and/or even surgery using broadband technology on the Internet in the future.

• There are no other identified competing services in Canada that are available on the Internet. Elsewhere, there are several "Find-a-Doctor" type services on the Internet in the U.S.A. operated by Health Maintenance Organisations (HMO).

• Given the urgency because of the government policy, the bilingual database of physicians for the Province of Ontario will be developed first. Thus, the initial target market would be the residents of Ontario. The operation will be financed by charging physicians low subscription fees (less than $1 CAD/day) for directory enlisting and Home Page placement. Thus, the MediCanada Directory service would enhance the growth and competitiveness of the Lead Contractor, which is a Canadian-Controlled Private Corporation.

• The commercialisation plan for the MediCanada Directory service is outlined below.

• Income
  • (1 000 physicians) * ($30 CAD/month) * (12 months/year)
    = $360 000 CAD/year

• Expense
  • Labour cost ......................... $100 000 CAD/year
  • Telecommunications ................... $20 000 CAD/year
  • Hardware maintenance ................. $20 000 CAD/year
  • Software maintenance ................. $20 000 CAD/year
  • Financial charges .................... $20 000 CAD/year
  • Royalty to CANARIE ................... $40 000 CAD/year
  • Taxes ................................ $40 000 CAD/year

• Income - Expense
  • Profit .............................. $100 000 CAD/year

06 | Schedule

• Key Project Milestones

• 1998-05
  • Start of the project.

• 1998-06
  • Finalise the hardware and software requirements.

• 1998-08
  • Complete the coding of language-independent algorithm for the physician database interface.

• 1998-10
  • Complete the framework and schema template for the physician database.

• 1998-12
  • Complete the integration of the system into WWW with CGIs and/or plug-ins.

• 1999-02
  • Populate the physician database.

• 1999-03 (deadline)
  • Completion of the project.

• Deliverables

• 1999-02
  • A web site with MediCanada Directory service on the Internet.

• 1999-03
  • A project report describing the overall system architecture as well as detailed components.

07 | Financial and Human Resource Capability

• The lead contractor has already constructed and demonstrated a prototype web site MediCanada Services <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/MediCanada/>. Although only a few physicians have signed up so far, the web site has become popular enough to be nominated for the 1997 Canadian Internet Awards for "Best Health or Medical Site". The ever-increasing number of daily visits to the web site is a justification for further development and commercialisation. MediCanada Services web site has already been indexed in various Internet search engines and directories, but the system requires significant efforts to scale up and populate in order to be a premier Consumer Health Care Information system.

• The lead contractor and the participants have, apart from expected CANARIE funding, sufficient financial and human resources (i.e. sufficient people with relevant expertise) to carry the project through to completion and to exploit the results.

08 | Budget

• Cost of the project
  • Direct Labour ....................... $100 000 CAD

  • Direct Materials ..................... $20 000 CAD

  • Special Purpose Equipment ............ $20 000 CAD

  • Subcontracts & Consultants ........... $50 000 CAD

  • Travel .................................... $0 CAD

  • Other Costs .......................... $10 000 CAD

  • Total Costs ......................... $200 000 CAD

  • Total Eligible Costs ................ $200 000 CAD

• Proposed sources of funding (Applicant & Participants)
  • Working Capital ...................... $10 000 CAD

  • Borrowed Capital ..................... $10 000 CAD

  • Provincial R & D Tax Credits ......... $10 000 CAD

  • Federal R & D Tax Credits ............ $20 000 CAD

  • Other Government Sources .................. $0 CAD

  • CANARIE Funding ..................... $150 000 CAD

  • Total Funding ....................... $200 000 CAD

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"Sunatori, Go Simon" <GS.Sunatori@HyperInfo.CA>

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• All rights reserved./Tous droits réservés.
• Produced in Canada./Produit au Canada.

ISBN 978-0-929105-04-8

• 2024-04-11T01:49:04.000Z