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Response to COVID-19 has both intentionally and unintentionally progressed the digitization of health and community care, which can be viewed as a human rights issue considering that access to health and community care is a human right. In this article, we reviewed two cases of digitization of health and community care during the pandemic; one in Scotland, United Kingdom and another in British Columbia, Canada. An integrated analysis revealed that digitization of health and community care has intended positive and unintended negative consequences. Based on the analysis, we suggest five areas of improvement for equity in care: building on the momentum of technology advantages; education and digital literacy; information management and security; development of policy and regulatory frameworks; and the future of digital health and community care. This article sheds light on how health practitioners and leaders can work to enhance equity in care experiences amid the changing digital landscape.

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technology is of considerable interest in supporting the independence and quality of life of older adults. As such, it is a core focus of the emerging field of gerontechnology, which considers how technological innovation can aid health and well-being in older age. For this scoping review, a comprehensive search of databases and key journals was conducted from January to April of 2013 in order to identify AAL technologies that have the potential to help deal with some of the challenges associated with aging. In particular, we focused on technologies that could potentially be used by people living with some degree of cognitive impairment, ranging from normal cognitive aging to mild cognitive impairment up to earlier stages of dementia. Options currently available and those still under development were both included in our search. Fifty-nine technologies were identified and are outlined here, along with a discussion of history of AAL from a gerontological perspective and related theoretical considerations.

Objective: To obtain improved quality information regarding psychiatrist waiting times by use of a novel methodological approach in which accessibility and wait times are determined by a real-time patient referral procedure.Method: An adult male patient with depression was referred for psychiatric assessment by a family physician. Consecutive calls were made to all registered psychiatrists (n= 297) in Vancouver. A semistructured call procedure was used to collect information about the psychiatrists' availability for receipt of this and similar referrals, identify factors that affect psychiatrist accessibility, and determine the availability of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).Results: Efforts were made to contact 297 psychiatrists and 230 (77%) were reached successfully. Among the 230 psychiatrists contacted, 160 (70%) indicated that they were unable to accept the referral. Although 70 (30%) indicated that they might be able to consider accepting a referral, 64 (91% of those who would consider accepting the referral) indicated that they would need to review detailed, written referral information and could not provide estimates of the length of wait times if the patient was to be accepted. Only 6 (3% of the 230 psychiatrists contacted) offered immediate appointment times and their wait times ranged from 4 to 55 days. When asked whether they could provide CBT, most (56%) psychiatrists in clinical practice answered maybe.Conclusions: Substantial barriers exist for family physicians attempting to refer patients for psychiatric referral. Consolidated efforts to improve access to psychiatric assessment are needed.