Published November 3, 2025, by Canadian Healthcare Technology magazine. Used with permission.
Author: Simon Ling
Primary care clinicians face many challenges in Canada, including mounting administrative workloads, fragmented flows of information, and increased complexities in patient care. The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) may provide some relief by restoring a sense of balance and efficiency in healthcare systems. Yet without careful curation, integration, and governance, AI can create as many problems as it solves.
Collaborative, clinician-centred approach to AI adoption
As a provincial leader in digital health, OntarioMD (OMD) is transforming AI's potential into tangible clinical benefits for family doctors in Ontario—securely, ethically, and at scale. By applying a collaborative, clinician-centred approach to AI adoption and engaging directly with key stakeholders across clinical, regional, and provincial levels, OMD ensures that AI solutions are evaluated for technical performance, usability, workflow integration, patient safety, and privacy compliance.
This includes involvement from patients (to help secure their trust in the use of AI), technology vendors (to ensure products align with healthcare needs), research institutions (to lead innovation in response to the user experience), and policymakers and regulators (to create the frameworks needed for safe and ethical deployment). This approach fosters innovation in developing AI solutions tailored to primary care, addresses policy and regulatory gaps, and creates a scalable adoption framework.
Clinicians, however, play a unique role in integrating AI into healthcare settings. As the primary users of AI in clinical practice and the frontline providers of care, clinicians have invaluable insights into the technology's impact on their patients, workflows, processes, and overall decision-making. To that end, OMD is focusing on clinicians, specifically their views and usage of AI, to facilitate its deployment in healthcare via three key initiatives.
The Ontario AI Scribe Program
In 2024, OMD led an evaluation study of AI scribes in partnership with Amplify Care and the Women's College Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV) to address physician burnout caused by documentation overload. The study found that participants spent 70% to 90% less time on paperwork and saved nearly four hours a week on administrative tasks. It also noted 76% of participants reported a reduction in information overload during patient visits.
Based on the study's results, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ontario Health partnered with Supply Ontario and OMD to launch the Ontario AI Scribe Program to scale AI scribe use to more clinicians. The program offers a vendor of record (VOR) list that vetted solution vendors and their products against three main categories:
- Clinical and business – ensuring that solutions provide high-quality service which can integrate effectively with existing clinical workflows.
- Legal and privacy – establishing that data is used, collected, and disclosed appropriately and remains compliant with relevant privacy laws.
- Security – verifying that vendors maintain best practices in cybersecurity and protect sensitive health information to help minimize clinicians' exposure to risk.
For clinicians, the VOR list removes the guesswork in choosing the most suitable scribe for their needs, saving them time and money. Clinicians receive change management support from OMD, at no cost to them, to facilitate the adoption of AI scribes into their practices. Additional clinician resources on AI scribes, including a Patient Consent Toolkit and Transition Support Guide, can be found on the OMD Practice Hub.
AI-generated summary pages in Health Report Manager
Technology is a double-edged sword, with significant promise and resulting challenges. Health Report Manager (HRM®) is a case in point. Created to seamlessly deliver hospital reports directly into clinicians' electronic medical record (EMR) systems, HRM® does so brilliantly, with over 4 million reports sent to community-based clinicians each month. However, the successful adoption of HRM® also increases administrative burden, with clinicians having to review lengthy PDF reports (which are not searchable by EMR systems) and often, multiple versions of the same report.
To counter these issues, OMD is trialing a series of changes to HRM®, starting with duplicate reports and the handling of highly formatted reports (i.e., PDFs). A limited number of users will see reports clearly labelled as duplicates and will receive PDF reports that are enhanced with an AI-generated summary. The trial is the latest action by OMD, along with its health system partners, to make improvements to reduce clinicians' administrative burden.
AI-powered clinical decision support partnerships
With clinicians rapidly adopting AI solutions to manage administrative tasks and enhance efficiency, there is now an opportunity to leverage this emerging technology to enhance quality of care and patient outcomes. OMD is supporting Ontario Health alongside the Centre for Effective Practice and WIHV to evaluate AI-powered CDS tools for the Evidence2Practice Program. These tools are intended to:
- Leverage AI responsibly to assist clinicians with diagnosis, treatment, and care planning.
- Enhance evidence-based decision-making while protecting patient privacy and safety.
- Align with Ontario's Quality Standards, clinical guidelines, data standards, and other system priorities.
A market and clinician value proposition analysis is underway by project partners, with OMD currently analyzing legal and privacy considerations for AI-powered CDS tools.
Forging a path to responsible AI scribe use in primary care
OMD's leadership to advance AI solutions in primary care settings shows how a trusted intermediary can bridge the gap between innovation and frontline clinical practice. In placing an emphasis on clinician needs, co-design, and rigorous evaluation, OMD has drafted a blueprint for the safe and effective adoption of AI tools in health care. Together, these initiatives strengthen Ontario's primary care system and provide valuable lessons for other jurisdictions seeking to harness AI responsibly to improve health outcomes.