eHealth Ontario's Recent Accomplishments
The provincial government is making progress on its commitment to ensure every Ontarian has an electronic health record. Since 2008:
- More than 11,000 community-based clinicians have implemented or are in the process of implementing electronic health records in their practices - serving more than nine million Ontarians.
- 75 percent of Ontario's primary care physicians are using or are in the process of installing electronic health records in their practice.
- The latest electronic health records collect over 30 diabetes-related data elements, 25 for chronic heart failure, and more than 45 for asthma, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Physician records are increasingly connected to regional health care institutions. Every year, more than 4 million reports such as patient discharge summaries, critical to avoiding expensive hospital re-admissions, enable patients to get better and timelier care from their primary care provider.
- 90 members of the Association of Ontario Health Centres (AOHC) - which provide community-based primary care to many of the province's most vulnerable groups - are installing electronic records so that over 800 nurses and doctors can provide better care to their patients, including those who may not have a family physician. AOHC member sites include 75 community health centres, 10 Aboriginal health access centres and five nurse practitioner-led clinics.
- Approximately 3,000 types of lab results are currently being accessed through electronic health records, helping to avoid duplication.
- Electronic health records are more comprehensive, providing immediate access to the Ontario laboratories information system (OLIS), a provincial database containing approximately 70 per cent of community and hospital lab tests.
- Digital Diagnostic images (CT scans, MRIs, mammograms, X-rays) can now be sent electronically across the province.
- Brain CT scans of patients suffering head trauma are now transmitted and viewed within minutes by a 24/7 on-call neurosurgeon who consults with medical staff at any of Ontario's 97 acute care centres. The result is better, faster diagnoses for head trauma patients and far fewer out-of-country emergency transfers.
- In every one of the province's emergency rooms, the individual drug profiles of Ontario's seniors are now available onscreen to ER staff.