A digital clinic is not automatically easy to book

What the new data does show

Statistics Canada's 2025 Survey on the Use of Digital Technologies by Health Care Providers found that 92% of Canadian providers had access to a digital health system in their main practice setting in 2024. Fifty-two per cent reported using one to send or share patient clinical information outside that setting, while 78% of the providers in scope for the barriers measure reported at least one barrier. The most common was insufficient integration between systems. Statistics Canada's release

That is useful evidence about the care-delivery environment. It is not a verdict on a clinic website, online booking tool, call response or intake form. The survey measured providers' reported experience of systems used for clinical information exchange, not how members of the public discover or contact a particular clinic.

Keep the two journeys distinct

Clinical systems and a public booking path solve different jobs. One helps authorized care providers document and exchange clinical information. The other helps a person decide whether a clinic is relevant, find the right service, understand a referral or location requirement, and ask for an appointment.

A clinic can improve one without fixing the other. A polished website cannot make clinical information interoperable. An electronic record does not explain whether a person needs a referral or where to book. Treating both workstreams as digital transformation hides the handoff that prospective patients actually experience.

Use the survey with its limits intact

The survey collected responses from 6,157 health care providers in the 10 provinces between 7 May and 27 July 2025, asking about their 2024 experience. The response rate was 45.8%. It did not collect data in the territories, and the estimates are self-reported, so they may be affected by recall bias. Statistics Canada's methodology notes

That scope matters. The figures should not be used to claim that most clinics offer online booking, that a particular patient group prefers a channel, or that a clinic's existing booking process is effective. Those are separate questions that a clinic needs to test in its own context.

• The data covers selected provider occupations, not clinic websites or prospective patients.
• It covers the 10 provinces, not the territories.
• It describes 2024 experience, reported in a 2025 survey and released on 30 March 2026.
• It is evidence about clinical information exchange, not a benchmark for inquiry conversion or attendance.

Test the public path without touching clinical data

AKIERO's interpretation is operational. Pick one service with genuine capacity, then ask a non-patient colleague to complete the public journey on a phone. The aim is not to mimic care or collect personal information. It is to find the friction before an inquiry reaches the team.

Start with four checks:

The website should name the service, location and next step in ordinary language. It should say when a referral, eligibility check or phone call is required. The form or booking tool should ask only for information needed to route the inquiry. The clinic should be able to confirm who receives it, how quickly they respond, and whether the person can complete the next step. AKIERO's websites and appointment-booking work treats this public path as a practical service problem, not a clinical-record project.

• Can a person tell within a minute whether the clinic offers the service?
• Can they see the correct location, referral requirement and contact route before they share details?
• Does the action work at a 390px mobile width, including keyboard and focus states?
• Can the team record contact, booking and attendance outcomes without copying symptoms, diagnoses or treatment notes into marketing systems?

Fix the first unclear handoff

Do not rebuild every system because a national survey found a gap in information exchange. Start with the first point where a suitable inquiry becomes uncertain. It may be a service page that omits referral requirements, a form that goes unowned, a phone number that is hard to use on mobile, or a booking step that does not match the clinic's capacity.

The clinic inquiry audit is a low-pressure way to map one service from first contact to attendance. If the path is already clear but the handoff still fails, compare it with what the front desk knows that never reaches the dashboard. That feedback can improve the public path without turning marketing software into a clinical record.