Published February 2026 by Canadian Healthcare Technology magazine. Used with permission.
Authors: Dr. Chandi Chandrasena, Simon Ling, Reza Talebi, and Dr. Abbas Zavar
Across Canada, primary care clinics are feeling the strains of administrative burden, fragmented workflows, and limited interoperability.
A 2024 survey by OntarioMD (OMD) to gauge technological burnout among more than 1,500 physicians confirmed what many already knew: documentation tasks, varying processes, and siloed data are impacting clinician capacity, continuity, and morale.
To address this issue, OMD proposes a pragmatic vision for the modern, digitally optimized medical practice, built upon four pillars:
Empowered, Connected, Streamlined, and Supported. This vision outlines the characteristics of a high performing and digitally enabled team, drawing from our collaboration with community clinics, insights from clinician surveys, and expertise with change management and digital solutions via our Peer Leaders and OMD Advisory Staff.
Rather than chase one-off tools, the vision offers clinics a path toward dismantling silos and building bridges, aligning with provincial and pan-Canadian interoperability efforts while staying grounded in the realities of daily patient care.
This four-part editorial series will delve into each vision pillar, beginning with
Empowered clinics (the human foundation for any serious digital or AI agenda), and followed by
Connected (interoperability),
Streamlined (workflow design and automation) and
Supported (managed digital services and infrastructure). Together, they provide a scalable and sustainable blueprint for vendors, policymakers, and health system leaders in collaborating with clinics on tangible solutions.
"Empowered" Comes First
The definition of a digitally optimized clinic is not how many tools it has, but whether its
people can use them confidently, consistently and safely. The culmination of OMD's research points to gaps in digital and EMR skills, heavy workloads, role ambiguity and limited capacity to change workflows as the biggest barriers to adoption – even with available and fully funded technologies.
Digital tools alone will not improve a clinic. There is also no "one-size-fits-all" solution that can be applied to all clinics. Quite simply, a team is what is needed for a clinic to be truly empowered and digitally optimized, and many clinics do not yet function as one. Success starts by working together to outline and redefine roles and responsibilities related to staff, clinicians, and the clinic, using technology as a support to strengthen collaboration and make workflows more efficient.
In this context, "Empowered" clinics are those that deliberately build capability, clarity, and confidence across their workforce and patient community, where:
Roles and responsibilities for staff, clinicians, and the clinic are reevaluated to enable a shared goal.
Digital literacy is embedded within these roles.
Role-specific training and micro-credentialing are available for clinicians, medical office assistants (MOAs), and other staff.
Patients receive targeted support to learn about and navigate digital tools.
This is not easy work. Insights from OMD surveys show that ease of usability correlates with less burnout and higher perceived value of digital tools—a sign that investing in skills, design, and support is itself, a burden reduction strategy.
Building a Digitally Ready Workforce
For many clinics, structured, role-based training serves as the starting point. Within the Empowered pillar, clinicians and staff are encouraged to systematically use EMRs and digital tools to support decision making and enhance quality improvement. Achieving these goals requires multi-pronged empowerment strategies to address these areas:
Digital literacy and EMR proficiency: core skills in documentation, ordering, task management and data use, tailored by individual roles and practice models.
Micro-credentialing and modular training: short, focused learning units for physicians, nurses, staff, and MOAs that can be stacked over time and tailored to each clinic's strategic goals.
Human resources planning: hiring, onboarding, and performance expectations that incorporate digital competence as a primary focus in a team-based environment.
To facilitate the building of a digitally ready workforce, OMD can assess a clinic's readiness and identify capabilities on which to build and expand, using digital health maturity concepts.
Through the OMD Educates program (omdeducates.com), we offer a range of educational opportunities including webinars, hands-on workshops, eCoaching modules, communities of practice, and project-based learning tailored to the diverse roles within the circle of care. These offerings are designed to meet the digital health learning needs of clinic staff, nurses, and physicians, supporting them in building confidence and competence in their day-to-day practice.
An Empowered workforce also benefits vendors and system partners as they can roll out more sophisticated solutions with a trained team on the ground to safely adopt them.
Patients as Digital Care Partners
Empowerment is not limited to staff. In a digitally optimized clinic, patients are treated as partners, not passive recipients. In this respect, the Empowered pillar calls for:
Patient literacy programs to address inequities in accessing and understanding digital tools, portals and virtual care, including language, accessibility and connectivity barriers.
Access to external learning resources from trusted provincial and national organizations that reinforce what patients hear in clinic, making it easier to self-manage between visits.
Patient-facing processes with clear clinic goals and boundaries to ensure patients and staff know what to expect from digital channels and information management.
Empowerment as the Foundation for AI
The question, "Are we ready for AI?", is top of mind for clinicians and policymakers. The answer is to begin with Empowerment.
The use of AI tools, such as AI scribes, does not guarantee reduced burden or full accuracy. It is also unlikely that AI tools will be trusted if users are exhausted, unclear on roles, lack skills, and are unsupported when things go wrong.
In an Empowered clinic:
Teams have baseline digital fluency, so AI tools are introduced as an evolution of existing workflows rather than a foreign imposition.
There is clarity on responsibilities – for example, who verifies AI-generated content and resolves exceptions, how risks are escalated, etc. – rooted in the clinic's mission and governance.
Staff and patients are confident in identifying problems early, providing feedback, and participating in frequent calls for improvement.
A Call to Action
Empowered clinics are not a happy accident, but the result of a deliberate investment in a team (clinicians, staff, and patients) and a support system (tools, playbooks, and partnerships). As the quote from the movie Field of Dreams goes,
"Build it and they will come." In this case, build technologies, services, and funding programs that provide training, literacy, governance, and patient support as core features (not optional add-ons), and the rest will fall into place.
As clinics invest in empowering their teams and patients, the question emerges: "How do we ensure this effort has an impact beyond the walls of a single clinic?"
Skills, literacy, and shared purpose are essential, but can only go so far if information across hospitals, labs, and community clinicians remains fragmented and digital tools do not communicate with one another. The value of an empowered clinic can only be unlocked when people and processes are supported by reliable, standards-based data that flows with patients across points of care.
In the next article of our four-part series, we will examine the second pillar,
Connected, and how interoperability, data governance, and smarter integration can transform empowered teams into networked clinics, with system-wide impacts.