In a digitally enabled practice, change will be a constant

by Sarah Hutchison LLM, MHSc, CEO, OntarioMD
Dr. Chandi Chandrasena, CCFP and FCFP, Chief Medical Officer, OntarioMD

So much has changed in the delivery of health care in Canada since COVID-19 turned the world on its head. Virtual care is now mainstream, testing and contact tracing ramped up, and a national rollout of life-saving vaccines is underway in a variety of settings. Health-care providers have shown a tremendous ingenuity and receptivity to change since the pandemic took hold, and digital health has supported the transformation. But it’s far from over. In a digitally enabled practice, changes are always coming.

At OntarioMD, our vision is for a healthier Canada powered by digital innovation. And for us, those are not just words. Every day, we see how technology is benefiting clinicians and patients, in part by enabling new and better ways of doing things, integrating systems that were once operating in silos and tracking patients as they move through their health journey. Central to our mission is advocating for the needs of clinicians and their patients and ensuring that we add direct value to practice and the delivery of care. 

In a recent example, senior citizen Hazel Mcgee reported that playing a role in managing her own care by taking her own vital signs each day and entering the data into a tablet through the Telehomecare program was easing her day-to-day anxiety about her heart and lung issues, and cancer. Dr. Leon Bhatia, a Toronto family physician who recently took over a downtown paper-based practice, told us that OntarioMD’s Insights4Care (i4C) dashboard allowed him to quickly assess the needs of the 1,400 patients he inherited and prioritize which ones he needed to see first. “You can just open the dashboard and you have the list of patients that you know need aspects of care addressed,” he said. “This is a safety net to me. No one slips through the net.”

An adaptation to OntarioMD’s Health Report Manager (HRM®) has meant that primary care physicians receive test results for patients tested for COVID-19 from hospitals and their COVID-19 assessment centres in real time. This limits worry time for patients and their families and enables contract tracing to begin immediately. This and so much more is possible today because of the services and digital products offered by digital health technology companies like OntarioMD, affectionately known as OMD, and our partners.

Consider this, as a result of our OMD Connects initiatives:

• more than 21,000 clinicians and their staff are using electronic medical records (EMRs) to deliver care to more than 11 million Ontario patients
• more than 30,000 people (clinicians and practice staff) have used an OntarioMD product or service
• patient information is delivered from more than 500 hospitals and specialty clinic sites into the EMRs of more than 12,000 clinicians
• more than two million reports a month are flowing digitally to clinicians in real time from hospitals and specialty clinic sites through OntarioMD’s Health Report Manager (HRM) including eNotifications, OTN telehomecare reports, patient summaries from eVisits and consultations reports from mental health facilities
• reports from COVID-19 assessment centres, the latest useful feature available through HRM, are being transmitted instantaneously to primary care clinicians
• also using HRM, physicians and nurse practitioners are now receiving instantaneous notices that positive COVID-19 test results for their patients are available through Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS)
• using OntarioMD’s Insights4Care (i4C) dashboard, clinicians can generate relevant EMR data in a quick, easy-to-scan graphic on key indicators such as diabetes, obesity, immunizations, prescribed opioid use, and smoking status—across the population and in individuals—even as patients may be hesitant to seek help
• many physicians have the capacity of asking specialists questions by using eConsult from their EMRs and can get an answer within a couple of days and often less time

As we jump aboard this changing landscape, it’s important to accept that the future of digital health lies in continuous learning. A system or tool is only as good as the user’s ability to get the most out of it. For this reason, OntarioMD is actively ensuring physicians and their staff are comfortable with the tools and technology designed to enhance their practice.

Through the OMD Educates program, almost a dozen training workshops a year are offered on various topics around such themes as virtual care, the digitally integrated practice and privacy and security. This Group Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to two Mainpro+ credits. The program is an Accredited Group Learning Activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and approved by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC).

Through our Peer Leader Program, more than 60 physicians, clinic managers and nurse peer leaders who are expert users of OntarioMD-certified EMRs and other digital health and virtual care tools are available to coach physicians as they seek to get the most out of the platforms. Peer leaders understand the diversity of needs and challenges faced by busy practices and offer complimentary consulting services to practices that can lead to more efficient use of EMRs, practice workflow and much more.

As the world of virtual medicine expands, it opens up a new world of opportunities for patient care. But it also raises issues that need to be addressed, including the legal aspects of virtual care delivery and how to keep patient data and messaging secure. It’s important to understand privacy and security in a digital world.

Through OMD Educates, OntarioMD offers privacy resources with tips such as:

• deleting emails and images with personal health information from inboxes and device trash bins
• ensuring software and hardware applications have been updated with the latest security patches
• transmitting personal health information through secure messaging to ensure messages are encrypted

For those who want to delve deeper, OntarioMD offers a course covering online privacy and security, and topics include:

• a physician’s legal obligations under the Personal Health Information Protection Act
• best practices for safeguarding a patient’s personal health information
• establishing practice policies and protocols for use of digital health tools
• patient consent
• responding to privacy breaches and incidents such as ransomware attacks

The module is accredited for College of Family Physicians of Canada’s Ontario Chapter for two Mainpro+ credits. Specialists can claim two credits/hour under the Royal College Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Program as a Section 2: Personal Learning Project. 

The future is always evolving, and that brings so much opportunity for innovation and new ways of doing things. As a result of the work of digital health organizations like OntarioMD, virtual care delivery platforms, cloud-based data integration, and clinical decision support based on artificial intelligence (AI) applications are changing practice dramatically. OntarioMD is leading the digital future of practice and we want to bring everyone along for this exciting ride with us. We are here to help physicians find their place in this fast-moving environment.