Digital health use is not proof a clinic journey works

What the new Canadian data says

Statistics Canada released 2025 results from the Canadian Community Health Survey on September 3, 2026. Among adults in Canada excluding the territories, 51.4% reported actively engaging with digital health services, and 32.3% reported that digital services were useful for managing their health. The published table also puts electronic access to core parts of a person's health record at 13.5%. Statistics Canada's release and the accompanying table

Those measures describe people's reported digital-health literacy and access. They do not measure clinic websites, directory listings, online booking, call response, inquiry suitability, attendance or care outcomes. A clinic should not turn a national percentage into a claim that its own patients prefer one channel, or that a digital route is already easy to use.

The measures are narrower than they sound

The table defines active digital engagement through five statements about obtaining health information with technology, making technology work for one's needs, entering information, navigating new technologies and learning to use them. It defines usefulness through five other statements about technology supporting health, communication and monitoring. Both are self-reported measures. They are not observed completion rates for a clinic task.

Electronic access has a specific definition too. It means reported access to vaccination records, current medications and medication history, plus at least one of laboratory results or medical-imaging reports. That is a health-record measure. It does not show that someone can find the right local service, know whether a referral is needed, or complete a booking request.

Keep the study's scope intact

The data came from the 2025 annual Canadian Community Health Survey, collected from January 2 to December 31, 2025. Statistics Canada says the estimates represent adults age 18 and over living in the provinces. Territorial results were not included, and the survey's coverage also excludes people living on reserves and other Aboriginal settlements in the provinces, full-time members of the Canadian Forces, institutionalized people and people in two Quebec health regions. Statistics Canada notes

The table excludes refusal, don't know and not stated responses from its denominators. Percentages are rounded to the nearest tenth, and the published confidence intervals show the variability around estimates. The results are useful national context, not a clinic-level benchmark or a forecast of demand.

• The findings cover adults in the provinces, not every person in Canada or every prospective patient.
• They describe reported attitudes and access during 2025, not a current booking experience at a named clinic.
• They do not distinguish service type, clinical suitability, local capacity, referral rules or a person's reason for stopping a journey.
• They cannot show whether a clinic's marketing, phone line or online form caused a person to book or attend.

A digital route still needs a human handoff

AKIERO's interpretation is operational. When people are accustomed to using digital tools, unclear public information becomes more noticeable, not less. A phone number that is hard to tap, a booking button that leads to the wrong service, or an unowned form can still break the journey. Digital comfort does not remove the need for a clear next step.

A clinic can make that step more dependable without asking the website to make a clinical decision. Name the service, location and contact route. State when a referral, eligibility check or call is required. Tell the person what happens after they inquire. Keep symptoms, diagnoses and treatment details in the appropriate clinical system, not in a marketing form.

Test one path before you promote it

Choose one service with real capacity. On a phone and a desktop browser, ask a non-patient colleague to find the service, identify the correct location, understand the next action and submit only the minimum non-clinical information needed to route an inquiry. Then confirm who receives it and what the team does next.

If that route has too many decisions or no clear owner, fix the first break before buying more visibility. The clinic booking-path check gives a small way to review one public route. For a deeper look from inquiry to attendance, use the clinic inquiry audit. AKIERO's clinic website and booking work connects the public page to the handoff the clinic can actually support.