Connected Care Trust Framework

The Connected Care Trust Framework (CCTF) is Canada’s national, federated approach to enabling secure and scalable health data exchange.

It establishes a shared foundation of governance, legal agreements, and technical requirements that allow participants across the health system to securely recognize one another, verify permissions, and exchange information with confidence. This enables health information to be shared appropriately across care settings, organizations, and jurisdictions.

The CCTF does not replace systems or centralize data, but instead builds on systems already in place across Canada and enables them to work together more effectively. This means patient information is available where and when it is needed, clinicians are supported with more complete data at the point of care, health system coordination and efficiency improves, and vendors scale solutions more consistently within and across jurisdictions.

Canada has built strong digital foundations, with health information now widely digitized across care settings. However, this information remains fragmented across settings and systems.

Every year in Canada, there are approximately 500 million pharmacy visits, 85 million primary care visits, and 16 million emergency department visits. Across these interactions, patients often experience delays and repeated tests, clinicians spend time searching for information, and the health system cannot fully use the data it generates to improve care and outcomes.

Care also extends across jurisdictions, with approximately 40,000 out-of-province hospitalizations and 319,000 cross-jurisdictional encounters annually. This fragmented approach contributes to up to $4 billion in annual inefficiencies and more than $80 million in administrative costs from duplicative agreements.

Enabling health information to move securely and appropriately supports a more complete picture of care, improving patient outcomes, clinical decision-making, and coordination across the health system.