Electronic health record
eHealth initiatives allowing MDs greater access to patients ’ clinical information
Physicians are now able to access significantly more clinical information about their patients as a number of eHealth Ontario ’ s initiatives come to fruition . In a progress report to Council , Cindy Morton , CEO of eHealth Ontario , said the Electronic Health Record ( EHR ) system continues to build and link systems , enabling growing numbers of physicians to share and access patients ’ personal health information across the province .
Cindy Morton
Clinicians , for example , are now able to share digital images reports across the province ( see article on page 36 ). And since December 2016 , health-care providers at three Guelph organizations have been given , as part of a pilot project , access to up-to-date information about their patients ’ medication histories . The information available to these clinicians include pharmacy services ( for example , vaccine administration , MedsCheck Program , Fecal Occult Blood Test Kits ), and the publicly funded drugs and monitored drugs , including narcotics and controlled substances , that have been dispensed to their patients .
One of the next steps – which will begin with a pilot this year – will be to incorporate primary care information into the EHR system , said Ms . Morton . Eventually , she said , patients will be able to access their own electronic health record in order to better manage their own care . The goal , she said , is to ensure that every Ontario citizen has an electronic health record . Achieving that goal will improve the efficiency of clinical decision-making by providing a more complete picture of patient health information across the continuum of care . It will give physicians : faster access to patient information ; more time for patient care by reducing the amount of time
spent on administrative tasks ; the ability to better manage , coordinate and plan patient care ; and an improved ability to monitor patient outcomes .
The College ’ s eHealth Statement in 2013 anticipated such progress and set out the physician ’ s role in developing eHealth literacy and emphasized the importance of eHealth connectivity for good practice . “ As a health-care provider , the physician ’ s role is to provide quality care to patients and meet the evolving standards of the profession , no matter what tools , processes or resources are used ,” the statement reads . In fact , it is becoming clear that physicians must embrace the new technologies . A recent report from Ed Clark , a business advisor to the Wynne government , urged the Ontario government and regulatory bodies , like the College , to take a more directive approach in ensuring physicians move towards digitization . It was a direction that found favour with Eric Hoskins , Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care . “ In an increasingly connected and mobile world , we must accelerate the work done to make progress on digital health , but we must also make sure this is done in concert with a strategy that puts patients at the centre ,” he said .
Ms . Morton acknowledged to Council that EHR adoption by physicians has been challenged by the fact that many IT systems and software applications are neither as inter-operable at this time as they should be , nor is shared information governance as well-established as it needs to be . She told Council that eHealth Ontario is working on “ merging the most critical patient information from disparate systems and putting it into this space [ the EHR ]”. She added that the “ next chapter ” will allow physicians
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Dialogue Issue 4 , 2016