Recommendations for a timeline
Sharing digital images across the province
Electronic health record
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to incorporate the information from different data repositories like the Ontario Laboratories Information System( OLIS) into their own electronic medical record. This would reduce the time spent toggling between systems or printing out relevant information and manually adding it to the patient record, she said. The College is currently involved in making sure that setting up physician access to the Electronic Health Record and other eHealth services is as simple as possible. Specifically, the College is working with eHealth Ontario towards streamlining the
Recommendations for a timeline
An advisor to the Kathleen Wynne government recently provided an assessment of digital health assets in Ontario, including eHealth Ontario, and made some recommendations aimed at moving the EHR system forward.
“ Tremendous progress has been made to date, but such progress also underlines the need to do more, faster,” wrote Mr. Ed Clark, a former CEO at TD Bank, in his report.
Mr. Clark said the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should work with its partners to confirm and communicate its preliminary goals, such as:
ONE ID sign up process for members through the College’ s secure member portal. After successfully accessing our secure portal, physicians will be able to select“ ONE ID registration” and have their College information automatically passed to eHealth Ontario – making the registration process easier. ONE ID is the first step to enabling physicians to request access to services such as OLIS, Diagnostic Imaging Common Service and ONE Mail. Having one digital identity to multiple eHealth services will reduce the number of IDs and passwords a physician must manage and remember.
Electronic Health Record goals: Within 5 years, all authorized care providers should be accessing and contributing to patients’ shared electronic health records so as to improve coordination of care.
Hospital goals: Within 5 years, all hospitals should be using electronic tools to improve medication safety, to bring the latest clinical evidence to the bedside, and to share information with patients and those caring for a patient after discharge, in order to ensure more seamless follow-up care.
Patient goals: Within 5-7 years, all Ontarians should have online access to their own health information, such as test results, and to proven tools that enable them to book appointments, request prescription refills / renewals, connect with healthcare providers, manage their health, and share information as they choose to with others involved in their care.
Sharing digital images across the province
Physicians have been able to access Diagnostic Imaging( DI) reports for several years, within their own region. But a new eHealth Ontario service improves on what has been previously available by allowing DI reports to be shared throughout the province. The Diagnostic Imaging Common Service is now available in southwest Ontario through the ClinicalConnect viewer. Healthcare providers in the rest of the province who have access to the ConnectingOntario viewer will be able to check DI reports in their viewer later this year. Those without access to an eHealth viewer will still be able to review DI reports through eHealth Ontario’ s portal. Access to digital diagnostic imaging reports helps eliminate the need for physical transfer of test results, and the costly duplication of scans when a patient moves from one hospital to another. Most importantly for patients, it allows specialists at one facility to access DI results from other hospitals, allowing for more informed and timely clinical decisions. Physicians interested in getting more information are urged to go online at www. ehealthontario. on. ca and pull down the Health- Care Professionals tab.
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Dialogue Issue 4, 2016