[1] Federal, provincial, and territorial governments created CIHI as a "not-for-profit, independent organization dedicated to forging a common approach to Canadian health information".

The membership of the Board is dominated by Deputy Ministers of Health, although it does add a small number of academics to its associates.

use the broad range of health system databases, measurements and standards, together with evidence-based reports and analyses, in their decision-making processes.

CIHI tracks data in the different provinces with the help of information that is provided by hospitals, regional health authorities, medical practitioners and government bodies.

[6] eDSS requires a registered client access codes that provides a user the ability to submit data to CIHI.

CIHI responds to data requests on a cost-recovery basis, which costs $160 an hour for Canadian health care facilities, media (data requests only), governments, not-for-profit health agencies, universities (except for students through the Graduate Student Data Access Program), health professionals and researchers from the public sector (Price A clients), OR $320 an hour for private commercial operations (including but not limited to software vendors and consultants), foreign clients (Price B clients) and others not qualifying for Price A.

CIHI collects and processes MDS-MH data and provides... outcome measures and quality indicators reports to the hospitals".

[18] CIHI's role also encompassed continued responsibility for data definitions, content standards and classification systems because of CIHI's widely recognized role as leader in the development of health informatics standards and records, and its record of successful collaborations with other health organizations in Canada.

[19] Interoperable EMRs are intended to assist in ensuring that PHC clinicians have timely and relevant information necessary to deliver, coordinate and administer care.

[19] CIHI led the project and achieved a major milestone in 2011 with the establishment of the Draft Pan-Canadian Primary Health Care Electronic Medical Record Content Standard.

Moving forward, CIHI and its partners' plans include establishing more products and services that facilitate the adoption and implementation of the PHC EMR CS in addition to enacting strategies and plans for the longer-term governance and maintenance of the PHC EMR CS so that it remains clinically and technically relevant in the future.

[20] In a 2000 interview, Alvarez said of CIHI: "You name it, we track it," including subjects such as physician migration patterns, availability of nurses, supply and demand of organs, and survival rates for transplant patients.

[21] The authors of the report concluded by supporting the use of the data in the CIHI DAD for national perinatal surveillance and research, with a caveat that appropriate inference rest on an understanding of clinical practice and the use of sensitivity analyses to identify robust findings.

In the past, some news media outlets have raised concerns about the safety of personal health records in large medical/science databases like CIHI.

[22] The article suggested that the identities of individuals who had abortions and profiles of the mentally ill could potentially be leaked from CIHI's databases if proper security practices were not in place.

[22] The article also surmised that the greatest danger to patient and research subject privacy was the possibility of CIHI's health information being compromised through involvement with commercial entities.

[23] Since 2005, CIHI has maintained prescribed entity status under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA).