Mental health care in Canada is fragmented across a diverse ecosystem of providers and delivery methods. Patients often pass through siloed organizations that struggle to coordinate care, information, and resources. The consequences can range from frustration at the challenge of navigating resources to re-traumatization as patients must recount their experiences at each intake. Health-care providers interact with different funding streams and privacy laws from all levels of government, which can discourage and complicate collaborations.

Converge Mental Health Coalition formed in 2022 to help improve coordination and data sharing among providers. Starting in Alberta with six members, Converge now has over 100 members across multiple provinces and sectors. After interviewing mental health providers across Alberta about their challenges, Converge developed its Information Sharing Framework (ISF), which reframes the sharing of information, often seen as a risk, to be a benefit to organizations – even an obligation, since it can improve patient care. The ISF helps providers identify partner organizations, applicable regulations, reasons for collaborating, and the type(s) of collaboration needed to achieve their goals.

For example, a public agency may seek counselling support for a patient. Recommending a partner clinic might require no information sharing at all. But a patient who will be working with both the agency and the clinic going forward could benefit from the two having an ongoing relationship that includes sharing detailed information about the patient’s medical history and progress.

The ISF can help clarify for an organization how legislation governs its work, and how it can shift its practices for beneficial data sharing, including sample documents such as consent forms and information sharing agreements. The change is not always quick: organizations may have a mental picture of how they operate and hesitate to adapt for collaborations. Because small organizations often have little capacity to adjust their practices and add new staff responsibilities, large organizations may need to set up information sharing systems to support their smaller partners.

Looking ahead, Converge’s main goal is to help more organizations adopt the ISF, providing ongoing support for adopters and setting up communities of practice. While some adopters appreciate the ISF’s comprehensive detail, Converge is working on making the framework easier to implement for those who prefer a “plug-and-play" approach. It is also adapting the ISF for other provinces, starting with Ontario, and finding many similarities across provincial privacy legislation. Converge also recommends policy changes to facilitate beneficial information sharing, some of which have been adopted in Alberta legislation. One such adopted change is improved safety clauses governing when organizations can disclose information in emergencies.

The serious challenges of mental health issues have reached a crisis level in Canada; Converge’s work helps organizations understand and navigate their place within the response. And challenges arising from a diverse, fragmented patchwork of providers are not unique to mental health – Canadian service providers in many areas lack resources and rely on others to fill in their gaps, making information sharing a necessity. Information sharing has great potential to reduce administrative burdens and the duplication of work at organizations that are often stretched thin. Implementing it well is easier said than done, but for a growing number of organizations, Converge makes doing so easier.