Ontario announces new medical record system

TORONTO – Ontario announced it will produce a new province-wide Primary Care Medical Record system that will integrate patient records, reduce paperwork for doctors and improve the quality of care received by patients. It’s part of Ontario’s Primary Care Action Plan, for which the province will raise overall funding to a total of $3.4 billion between 2025 and 2029.

“Building a modern, connected primary care system is essential to improving the health of Ontarians,” said Dr. Jane Philpott (pictured), chair of the Primary Care Action Team. “We are adding clinical capacity with more funding for team-based care. Now we are adding the Primary Care Medical Record system which will give clinicians the tools they need to deliver more coordinated, patient centred care, while reducing administrative burden and improving outcomes.”

According to the news release, “The new system will allow clinicians to quickly and securely access patients’ medical history (with patient consent), so they can have rapid access to the information they need to provide the best possible care. Family physicians will be able to choose to transition to the new system and the government is exploring options to support related costs of family physicians who choose to take part.”

To support the rollout of this system, the province will begin an open competitive procurement process to establish a Vendor of Record arrangement. The market sounding announcement is available via the Ontario Tenders Portal.

Critics were quick to comment on the Ontario’s government’s last attempt to produce an electronic medical record, in 2009, which led to the loss of $1 billion and was also a political fiasco.

The announcement failed to mention new developments like AI scribes and real-time clinical decision support systems, which have taken medical offices by storm.

As one wit commented on LinkedIn, the government’s press release about the announcement could have been written in 2015.

Still, the Ontario government did acknowledge the problem of a lack of interoperability.

“While approximately 90 percent of Ontario family physicians use electronic medical records, the current system is fragmented, disconnected and unable to support effective information sharing. This means that when patients move between healthcare providers, they are often forced to repeat their health history to different clinicians and pay fees that can range into the hundreds of dollars to transfer their files or undergo costly and unnecessary repeat medical testing.”

The new initiative, it appears, will tackle this problem, although at this point there are very few details.

The document went on to say, “The proposed provincewide Primary Care Medical Record system will be an interoperable, secure system, accessible from across Ontario that will provide clinicians with a more complete view of a patient’s health history, improving coordination across the health system while reducing delays caused by missing records. For patients, this means more seamless care and hundreds of dollars in savings on fees required to transfer medical records between doctors, as well as improved medical record security.”

The Ministry of Health is partnering with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board on this initiative, recognizing that access to a regular primary care provider plays a crucial role in keeping workers healthy and helping injured workers get back on the job faster.

“When injured workers cannot access care quickly, it can delay recovery, create stress for families and keep people out of the workforce longer than necessary,” said David Piccini, minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. “That is why our government is supporting smarter, more connected care and helping workers access timely care, reducing delays, and supporting a safe return to work.”