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i4C FAQ

 


  1. What is the Insights4Care (i4C) Program?

    OntarioMD's (OMD) award-winning Insights4Care (i4C) program provides tools and support services enabling clinicians to improve patient and practice outcomes through visualizations and other insights derived from EMR data of their patient population. 

    i4C Dashboard is an EMR-integrated, user-friendly and actionable population health management tool that provides clinicians with near real-time visualizations of their EMR data through provincial health indicators. These indicators are based on preventive care and chronic disease management standards of care and up-to-date clinical guidelines established by the province, along with primary and specialty health care organizations.

    i4C Advisory Service provides coaching and toolkits to clinicians and practice staff to help them optimize the use of their EMR.
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  3. How is the i4C Dashboard different from other dashboards and quality reports (e.g., MyPractice Report, etc.) that are currently available to clinicians?

    Among existing primary care practice reports and dashboard tools, the i4C Dashboard is the only tool that:

    • Gives clinicians access to primary care indicators for their patient population, based on best-practice and up-to-date clinical guidelines, directly within their EMRs;
    • Provides visual representation of indicators based on current EMR data (no older than 24 hours), and;
    • Enables actionable follow-up by clinicians and practice staff on live patient data directly from the Dashboard using locally supported EMR functionality to generate alerts, generate patient letters, book appointments, view/update the patient chart, and more.

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  5. Will all Ontario clinicians eventually have access to the i4C Dashboard?


    OMD continues to evolve the i4C Dashboard to enable its broader deployment across all users of OMD-certified EMRs, and to expand its offering of indicators to support population health management and primary care Quality Improvement (QI) activities prioritized by the province, an individual region, or specific Ontario Health Team(s) OHT(s).

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  6. How does the i4C Program provide clinical value to primary care clinicians? 

    OMD has successfully helped more than 21,000 Ontario clinicians adopt and use EMRs in their practice. The i4C Dashboard is well-aligned with other EMR-integrated tools such as Health Report Manager (HRM®) to empower clinicians to realize clinical value and provide more proactive care for better patient outcomes.

    In an evaluation conducted in 2020 by the Centre for Digital Health Evaluation (CDHE) at Women's College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV), Key Findings reported several factors for clinicians to successfully leverage primary care reporting tools such as the i4C Dashboard to support QI objectives:

    • Dedicated staff who provide training and support to help clinicians and their staff to maximize the use of their dashboard and other EMR functionality
    • Training and embedded EMR tools to support clinicians in understanding, standardizing, and acting on data
    • Seamless integration of the dashboard / reporting tool with clinical workflows and EMR functionality
    • Easy to use and accessible within the EMR
    • Ability to prioritize specific health indictors related to the needs of their patient panel and population within their catchment area, geographic region, or OHT

    OMD provides all this and more to provide clinical value through the i4C Program. We have built a strong reputation as a trusted advisor for clinicians, supporting their adoption and optimized use of EMRs, integrated digital health products and virtual care tools. OMD staff are EMR expert users helping clinicians and practice staff understand how they can better use technology to meet their unique practice needs and improve efficiency and patient outcomes.

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  7. Does the i4C Dashboard expose patient or clinician data to any non-authorized EMR users?

    No, patient-level data that is required to create indicator results from a clinician's patient population is either generated directly within the clinic's EMR or from a secure, encrypted copy of EMR data for the sole purpose of running reports and queries without impacting EMR performance. Data is only copied by your EMR vendor with the explicit permission of clinicians and the clinical lead or signing authority. Patient-level data always remains within a clinic's control and is not viewable or accessible by any non-authorized EMR users (i.e., the clinic must grant permission to each EMR user to access the clinic's specific patient data).

     View our Privacy Policy for more information about how personal information is collected and used by OMD.

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  9. Who has access to aggregated data results provided through the i4C Dashboard?

    Indicator results for an individual clinician, aggregated over the clinician's patient population, are by default only viewable by authorized users within that clinician's practice who are granted permission within the EMR to view reporting data for that clinician. Any future enhancements to allow clinicians or clinics to share their results with other i4C Dashboard users, clinics, or non-users outside of the practice will only be enabled through explicit consent provided by the clinician and/or clinical lead or signing authority.

    As a condition of participating in the i4C Program, the i4C Dashboard clinician user consents to sharing their indicator results with OMD for the purposes of providing practice enhancement support to clinicians, administering the i4C Dashboard, identifying indicator improvements within the i4C Dashboard framework, and enabling Health System comparisons aggregated at the regional level within Ontario.  No Personal Health Information (PHI) is ever exposed through the process of generating indicator results.

    View our Privacy Policy for more information about how personal information is collected and used by OMD.

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  10. What are the benefits to clinicians for using the i4C Dashboard and sharing their aggregated i4C Dashboard data?

    Participants in the i4C Program receive the benefits of individual coaching and customized tools by OMD's i4C Advisory Service to ensure clinicians and practice staff are getting the most out of their EMR. In addition to this, OMD is currently developing an additional report customized for each clinician to reveal more in-depth patient and practice management insights. This customized report will only be available to i4C Dashboard clinicians who have shared their data with OMD.

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  12. How can clinicians participate in the i4C Dashboard and/or i4C Advisory Service?

    The i4C Dashboard is currently integrated with four OMD-certified EMRs: TELUS PS Suite, QHR Accuro®, YMS, and AwareMD Cerebrum. OMD is in the process of piloting the integration of the i4C Dashboard across all other OMD-certified EMRs. 

    The i4C Advisory Service is available to all clinicians using OMD-certified EMRs. You do not have to be an i4C Dashboard user to take advantage of our advisory support. 

    Contact OMD at support@ontariomd.com for the status of i4C Dashboard availability with your EMR, and to connect with our i4C Advisory Service for practice support.

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  13. Where can clinicians and others find more information on the i4C Program?

    For more information on the i4C Program, please visit the OntarioMD website or contact OntarioMD at support@ontariomd.com.

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