The federal government’s artificial intelligence strategy will include up to $100-million in funding to expand an Ontario-based health data project called Vital across the country.

Vital and its predecessor program Gemini have already helped researchers glean insights to improve patient outcomes, while saving the health care system money and freeing up hospital beds in Ontario.

The rollout across eight more provinces, which has already started in Quebec and Alberta, is meant to address long-standing concerns that Canada has fallen behind in mining its health care data for system improvements and economic benefit. The project uses an approach called federated AI, meaning the underlying information remains within each province or territory’s borders so as not to compromise jurisdictional constraints.

“Better health care depends on better use of data,” AI Minister Evan Solomon said in a statement. Vital, he added, can turn clinical data now fragmented across institutions, provinces and territories “into modern, secure health infrastructure that can support better research, stronger innovation and improved care.”