HRM Experience Improvement Task Force

Since 2013, Health Report Manager (HRM®) has been an indispensable tool for delivering electronic patient reports coming from 500+ hospitals and specialty clinics directly to clinicians' electronic medical records (EMRs). It has been an improvement over paper report delivery, however the influx of millions of reports each month has added to clinicians' administrative burden. 

HRM is only a report delivery tool. It doesn't produce the reports clinicians receive. Reports are produced upstream at hospitals. OntarioMD (OMD) recognized the need to take action to help reduce the report burden on clinicians by bringing together clinician users, the OMA, Ontario Health, the OHA, hospitals, EMR vendors and HIS (hospital information system) vendors, who play a role in end-to-end report delivery to clinicians. These stakeholders participated in the HRM Experience Improvement Task Force, chaired by OMD, to work on report standards that would address physicians' demands for improvements. Streamlining reports and reducing report volumes would enable more time on patient care and less time on paperwork. 

From the hospitals that prepare, format and transmit reports using their HIS systems to HRM, to the EMR vendors who integrate their EMRs with HRM, all have a part to play to improve clinicians' experience with electronic reports. OMD is committed to working with all sites and vendors to find solutions to the challenges.

The Task Force meetings concluded in April 2023. 

Check this page regularly for the latest updates on the work of the Task Force.

Results so far:

• Engaged health system partners (e.g., Ontario Health, CPSO, OHA, etc.) to support efforts to improve reports and their delivery.
• Made recommendations for Service Standards to be used by sending facilities (e.g., hospitals) and EMR vendors to provide clinicians with a consistent and better experience. 
• Developed an execution plan with short-term and medium-term solutions to community-based clinicians' key concerns
• Through the Task Force's advocacy, hospitals in the Central East region and Trillium Health Partners have already implemented solutions within their HIS or built a custom solution to stop duplicate reports faxed to HRM users. The suppression of faxes will reduce the administrative burden on primary care providers.
  

 

Task Force Deliverables Coming Soon: Fall 2023

• Current State Assessment – This document covers detailed examples of issues experienced by clinicians and provides the findings from the root cause analysis with sending facilities.
• Sending Facility Service Standards – This document encompasses best practices and usability recommendations for adoption by hospitals to reduce administrative burden, improve patient care, and create capacity for clinicians.
• EMR Usability Recommendations - This document contains recommendations for adoption by EMR vendors to optimize workflows and improve the clinician experience with HRM.
• Execution Plan – This document outlines the short-term and long-term activities for implementing the Sending Facility Service Standards and EMR Usability Recommendations.