PRACTICE PARTNER
“From a quality improvement approach, we
don’t know the right amount of people who
should be on an opioid. But if you’re vastly
different, you should probably think whether
your prescribing is clinically appropriate,” said
Dr. David Kaplan, a Toronto family doctor
and Chief of Clinical Quality for HQO, in
an interview with Dialogue in 2017.
OntarioMD
For the last year, OntarioMD has been
hosting interactive On the Road with
OntarioMD seminars. To date, the On
the Road seminars have been focused on
safe opioid prescribing, beginning with a
presentation that highlights the Canadian
guideline and describes useful resources
available to clinicians.
The second part of each evening gathering
is devoted to EMR-focused learning with
Peer Leaders. These Peer Leaders – physi-
cians who are advanced EMR users – sit
with small groups of other clinicians to
demonstrate how EMR data can be used
to identify patients who may be at risk of
opioid abuse, prescribe opioids safely and
monitor these patients. These sessions have
the added benefit of allowing physicians a
forum to share and compare experiences
with peers who also want to derive the most
benefit from their EMRs.
On the Road with OntarioMD seminars
are complimentary, and are accredited by
the Ontario College of Family Physicians
for two hours of Mainpro+ credits. Physi-
cians can get additional support after the
seminars by requesting a meeting with a
Peer Leader at a mutually convenient time
or doing a deeper dive of their EMR data
with OntarioMD staff through the EMR
Practice Enhancement Program (EPEP).
OntarioMD is also currently working –
in partnership with EMR vendors TELUS
Health Solutions and OSCAR EMR – to
develop an EMR-connected dashboard that
will provide clinicians with real-time visual
access to their patient data. The EMR Quality
Dashboard initiative will allow clinicians to
easily see their patient data measured against
a range of recognized clinical indicators for
chronic conditions, cancer and other health
issues. A series of opioid-related indicators are
also in development.
In addition to providing a view of
indicator data across a physician’s entire
patient population, the dashboard will
give physicians the ability to drill down to
patient level data, enabling them to take
immediate proactive steps by accessing
lists of patients associated with each indi-
cator. Also of significant clinical value to
physicians will be the ability to opt in to
trend and compare their aggregate indica-
tor results over time with other dashboard
users who’ve chosen to opt in to this fea-
ture. This feature would allow physicians
to see, for example, whether they have a
higher percentage of patients on high dose
opioids than their peers at any given time.
Having that information available may
lead a physician to consider whether they
need to make changes to the pain manage-
ment care of their patients.
Planning is currently underway for a pro-
vincial rollout.
For More Information
For more information about the Digital
Health Drug Repository please visit this link:
https://www.ehealthontario.on.ca/en/for-
healthcare-professionals/digital-health-drug-
repository.
To find out more about OntarioMD Peer
Leaders, EPEP or the On the Road with On-
tarioMD seminars, visit ontariomd.ca.
Ontario doctors can sign up for MyPractice
at hqontario.ca. The reports go only to the e-
mail address you provide upon registration, to
help you understand your patients and how
to support them.
MD
ISSUE 4, 2018 DIALOGUE
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