PRACTICE PARTNER
Giving
physicians
the tools
they need
The Ontario Partnered Support Table is a group of health system agencies intent on ensuring physicians have the
support they need to feel more confident caring for patients with pain. Over the next several issues of Dialogue, we take
a close look at how data, practice reports, facilitation and education developed by the Partnered Table’s participants
can help physicians better understand the complexity of pain management. In this issue, we examine the work by
Health Quality Ontario, OntarioMD, and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
T
reating patients with complex
problems, pain, high doses
of opioids, addiction – these
are all difficult issues, with
no easy answers. But having access to
information, such as meaningful prescribing
data and patients’ medication histories, can
help physicians make informed, rational
prescribing decisions.
Below, we describe several different initia-
tives to give physicians the tools they need.
The Digital Health Drug Repository
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term
Care’s contribution is the Digital Health
Drug Repository (DHDR), which represents
a foundational component of the Ministry’s
approach to enable a comprehensive digital
drug profile for Ontarians.
The DHDR supports authorized health-
care providers’ secure electronic access to a
patient’s available drug and pharmacy service
information, thereby enabling clinicians to
develop the best possible medication history
at the point of care.
The information available in the DHDR to
authorized health-care providers includes:
• Over eight years of information about dis-
pensed publicly-funded drugs;
• Over eight years of information about pub-
licly-funded pharmacy services e.g., Meds-
Check program, influenza vaccinations;
• Over six years of information about all
dispensed monitored drugs (narcotics and
controlled substances) regardless of payor,
when the approved identification used was a
ISSUE 4, 2018 DIALOGUE
33