Highlights and Impact of Our Work
Clinician Engagement & Optimizing the Health System
We had an outstanding 2021-22 at OMD. These notable highlights from the year reflect our enhanced efforts to engage with clinicians to optimize health system performance.
What it is:
OMD continued to mobilize its award-winning Health Report Manager (HRM®) to deliver real-time COVID-19 vaccination reports submitted through COVaxON to clinicians’ EMRs, as well as the delivery of notifications that patients’ positive COVID-19 test results were available in the Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS). In March 2022, HRM also began delivering backdated COVID-19 vaccination reports to provide complete patient records.
Value:
Sending COVID-19 patient information in real-time to EMRs allows clinicians to be informed and continue to care for their patients during the pandemic and beyond. Clinicians know quickly which of their patients test positive, so they can be monitored during self-isolation. Patients and their families are comforted that their primary care clinicians are up-to-date on their health status and can monitor them.
2021-22 Impact:
Over the year, HRM sent over 48 million reports from 578 hospitals and clinics to 13,447 clinicians.
Included in the report totals are reports delivered to clinicians submitted through COVaxON, and positive COVID-19 test result notifications in OLIS.
Looking ahead, OMD will continue to advocate for the digital integration of the health system that results in positive impact on clinicians and their patients. OMD is working with our health system partners to deliver patients’ COVID-19 vaccination reports to primary care clinicians’ EMRs through HRM to inform them of vaccinated patients.
What it is:
Based on direction from the Ministry of Health, and in partnership with the Ministry and Ontario Health, OMD began its work to connect OMD-certified electronic medical records (EMRs) with the provincial Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR) to allow clinicians streamlined access to drug information. The DHDR through an EMR offers clinicians secure access to view drugs dispensed to patients, including drugs covered under the Ontario Drug Benefit (ODB) Program, narcotics or controlled substances, pharmacy-given vaccines, and COVID-19 vaccination information.
Value:
With streamlined access to accurate and up-to-date patient information, clinicians can manage an easier workflow, save time, and provide informed patient care. Users are able to securely view dispensed drug information for their patients in real time to decrease the risk of adverse drug events such as medication errors, drug reactions, allergic reactions, and overdoses to keep their patients safe and improve their health.
2021-22 Impact:
In May 2021, YMS EMR became the first EMR to offer access to the DHDR, followed by YES EMR. EMR integration with the DHDR was made a mandatory requirement of EMR certification in November 2021, and vendors with OMD-certified EMRs have until November 2022 to meet requirements to maintain their certified status. OMD will continue to work with additional vendors on integration and to roll out this important provincial resource to more clinicians across the province.
What it is:
In March 2022, OMD established the Health Report Manager (HRM®) Experience Improvement Task Force, along with three working groups to improve HRM and work on eliminating clinicians’ pain points with the tool. This initiative brings together key system partners and decision makers to find solutions and decrease the burden of report management affecting clinicians in community practice.
Value:
HRM is a key tool for delivering hospital reports from 575+ sending facilities directly to clinicians’ electronic medical records (EMRs). The delivery of millions of reports each month to clinicians’ inboxes has added to the burden of report management. The HRM Task Force and its sub-groups are actively working to understand the burden and respond to clinicians’ concerns by recommending viable solutions to key issues.
2021-22 Impact:
The work of the Task Force to investigate pain points has just begun, with three sub-groups underway to address clinicians’ demands for improvements. The Advisory Circle will steer and advocate for recommendations put forth by the Task Force. The Sending Facilities Standards Working Group will contribute to a Current Statement Assessment, as well as work to understand and prioritize pain points and develop a list of core reports that should be sent from hospitals to community clinicians via HRM. The EMR Usability Working Group will aim to review and finalize Current State Assessment findings and make recommendations for EMR usability improvements.
What it is:
A collaboration between Ontario Health and OMD, eForms is the provincial, scalable electronic solution for health-related forms, and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is the first organization to offer this service. Clinicians can now seamlessly access 15 electronic forms (eForms) from MTO directly from their EMRs.
Value:
eForms allows direct, convenient access from EMRs to digitized forms, making form completion easier. It offers guided navigation to avoid illegible, incomplete or lost forms, and ensures the most up-to-date versions are always used to avoid errors and rejected forms. They are better than other digital forms in EMRs, which when submitted, arrive as faxes to the recipient. Rather than faxing paper or digitized forms to various organizations, clinicians can simply launch eForms through a button from a patient chart in their EMR. They complete the rest of the eForm and then submit it to MTO for processing. It is a secure and reliable method of submitting forms.
2021-22 Impact:
OMD worked with the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to digitize the submission of forms between clinicians and MTO. In June, MTO Driver Medical Review (DMR) eForms went live with the first clinician user of YMS EMR. In January, eForms added 30 digitized forms (15 English and 15 French). OMD continues to work with EMR vendors to connect clinicians to eForms directly from their EMR to help simplify and streamline form completion. OMD will also work with provincial organizations to seek additional digitized forms in the future.
What it is:
On March 17, 2022, OMD reached a milestone, conducting its 100th COVaxON training session. Sessions started in March 2021 when the Ministry of Health asked OMD to train primary care clinicians on its behalf to use the provincial vaccine management system because of our expertise in clinician engagement and training. OMD began onboarding and offering in-depth training to clinicians and their practice staff on the COVaxON system to support the administration of COVID-19 vaccines across the province. Training sessions are virtual and demonstrate how to access and use COVaxON, which enables the Ministry of Health, vaccination locations, and health care staff to collect COVID-19 vaccination data.
Value:
OMD is recognized for its first-class technical and change management support for physicians, and we have remained highly responsive to supporting COVID-19 vaccination efforts across the province by facilitating virtual clinical workflow and comprehensive end-to-end training on the COVaxON system for primary care practices offering vaccination clinics.
2021-22 Impact:
The vaccination of 14 million Ontarians is a huge undertaking and many primary care clinicians set up clinics to vaccinate their patients. Over the 100 sessions, OMD trained 2,689 physicians, nurses, clinic staff, and others who vaccinated Ontarians across the province against COVID-19. Throughout the year, more than 1200 unique practices were supported by OMD to use COVaxON, with 100+ training sessions hosted and 2600+ attendees in total.
What it is:
Building on the legacy of our in-person, award-winning EMR: Every Step Conference and our first virtual conference, OMD hosted its annual flagship Digital Health & Virtual Care (DHVC) Day Conference on September 30. [LJ1] Held virtually for a second consecutive year, this full-day, complimentary online event featured keynote speakers, CME-accredited educational sessions, EMR workshops, presentations and tradeshows on digital and virtual care topics geared towards clinicians and the health care community. Held on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the conference began the day by commemorating the history and legacy of residential schools.
Value:
DHVC Day is an inspiring day for clinicians and virtual and digital care enthusiasts. Attendees learn the latest on digital health solutions, while gaining clinically valuable knowledge to enhance patient care and practice efficiency. Through meaningful learning opportunities like DHVC Day, clinicians receive helpful guidance and OMD demonstrates thought leadership in an increasingly complex and evolving health care system.
2021-22 Impact:
DHVC Day garnered strong participation in its second year as a virtual conference. A total of 2,800 attendees joined throughout the day,including over 1,200 physicians, who tuned in from 22 countries around the globe.
The event featured keynote addresses by Dr. Adam Kassam, Ontario Medical Association’s (OMA) President and CEO Allan O’Dette. Attendees tuned in worldwide and were welcomed with opening remarks from our Interim CEO Dennis Ferenc, and Board Chair Dr. Greg Athaide. The day covered important topics such as addressing physician burnout, the human side of digital practice, and best practices for privacy protection and cybersecurity.
Looking ahead, OMD will prepare for next year’s Digital Health Conference, and continue to prioritize ways to respond to and ease the administrative burden on clinician practices through thoughtfully designed education and support.
What it is:
OMD engages with clinicians and their staff through a variety of dynamic communications and marketing campaigns that focus on the value that we bring to clinicians.
Value:
We develop useful materials and resources on digital health solutions that increase awareness of these services for clinicians, so they can evolve their practices and use technology and tools effectively to provide informed, patient-centred, high-quality care.
2021-22 Impact:
Throughout the year, OMD developed materials, resources and campaigns to increase clinician engagement and brand awareness of our products and services.
- We continued to distribute a monthly Digital Health eTips newsletter that offers tips and advice on EMRs, digital health and virtual care tools clinicians can use immediately.
- We promoted our 2022 Digital Health & Virtual Care Day Conference, educational events, and webinars through our CME-accredited OMD Educates: Digital Health and Virtual Care Curriculum for clinicians, with sessions conducted by OMD Peer Leaders and experts. OMDhosted 12, and attended 31, in-person and virtual events that provided visibility to over 9,000 clinicians and clinical staff throughout the 2021-22 year.
- For Doctor’s Day on May 1, we honoured the unwavering dedication and efforts of Ontario clinicians in a social media campaign. The campaign’s video features a warm-hearted message from Canada’s very own Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser, thanking clinicians for their year-round dedication to maintaining the health and safety of Ontarians.
- We presented our second annual OMD Luminary Awards, which recognizes and celebrates clinicians’ digital health excellence, and honours those who have championed digital health and virtual care tools in their practices.