Published in the April 2025 issue of Canadian Healthcare Technology. Used with permission.
Authors: Simon Ling and Abbas Zavar, OntarioMD
Since being founded as a subsidiary of the Ontario Medical Association over 20 years ago, OntarioMD (OMD) has supported primary care clinicians in adopting and leveraging digital health technology to increase practice efficiency and optimize patient care.
One of the most exciting, and arguably most impactful, 'new' technologies, is artificial intelligence (AI). Given its transformative potential, OMD has undertaken several initiatives in the last two years, including an environmental scan and the first-ever evaluation study of AI scribes in Ontario, to help identify opportunities and barriers to integrating AI solutions in primary care practice.
Through these efforts, OMD concluded that successful AI implementation in health care hinges on a strategy focusing on collaboration, implementation, and education.
Collaboration
The successful deployment of AI solutions in primary care relies heavily on collaboration among stakeholders, including clinicians, patients, policymakers, technology vendors, regulators, and research institutions across clinic, regional, and provincial levels. This fosters innovation in developing AI solutions tailored to primary care, addresses policy and regulatory gaps, and creates a scalable adoption framework. For example, OMD continues to leverage its digital health partnerships, established over a 20-year span, to engage with organizations (including the Ontario Medical Association, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and the Canadian Medical Protective Association), to ensure tools, such as AI scribes, meet healthcare regulations and adhere to ethical standards. A collaborative approach ensures AI solutions are implemented safely, ethically, and effectively, to enhance patient care and clinician workflows.
Another exercise is an innovation, or living, lab – a platform, building on OMD's existing EMR lab service, for exchanging knowledge, networking and co-designing AI technologies. To this end, OMD's innovation lab is evolving toward an environment that enables the safe experimentation of AI tools, with a possible expansion for access to standardized training datasets and AI models that reflect Ontario's demographics. This will ensure alignment with clinical needs specific to local areas.
Implementation
Developing a solid plan, with change management support at its core, is essential to AI implementation. The first step is conducting pilots to assess effectiveness and inform adoption strategies, as was undertaken with
the 2024 clinical evaluation study of AI scribes in Ontario. In the case of last year's study, the pilot approach confirmed AI's potential to optimize clinical workflows and alleviate clinician burnout. It also highlighted the importance of testing to ensure safety, privacy, and compliance with healthcare regulations, and change management support, provided by OMD Advisors, to further facilitate implementation.
Following the evaluation study's success and clinician interest in AI scribes, OMD is crafting an AI Implementation Toolkit to facilitate the seamless integration and adoption of AI into clinical workflow. The kit will cover areas such as planning, procurement, change management, patient engagement, and legal and privacy considerations. While there is no magic bullet for integrating a game-changing tool as revolutionary as AI, an implementation toolkit offers undeniable benefits. For clinicians, it provides practical resources, strategies, and change management support for adopting AI technology into their practices. For vendors and policymakers, it yields crucial evidence to inform their actions and decisions in the safe, sustainable and scalable adoption of AI in primary care.
Education
As with any initiative, education is the key to success. The importance of providing clinicians and patients alike with the knowledge to understand and navigate AI technologies cannot be understated. A comprehensive educational program, with webinars, conferences, and advisory services, not only helps to reduce the learning curve and facilitate AI adoption into clinical practice, but counters hesitancy towards its use. Environmental scans and market research also provide valuable insights on trends and best practices, which can be translated into resources such as training modules and toolkits.
An example of the might of education in implementing AI is OMD's
AI Knowledge Zone. A free online resource covering legal and privacy considerations for AI scribes, including best practices for adoption and usage, it offers practical information for clinicians and patients. For clinicians, it provides guidance on legal, privacy, and clinical risks alongside leading practices and peer-led strategies for effective AI adoption. For patients, it offers clear information about AI technologies, explaining their role in improving healthcare outcomes. The AI Knowledge Zone also serves as a conduit between clinicians and patients, providing digestible AI scribe information for both parties helping to create a level of trust and shared understanding.
AI Implementation Strategy in Action
For a recent illustration of a well-executed AI implementation strategy built upon the pillars of collaboration, implementation, and education, the 2024 evaluation study checks all the boxes. Tasked with leading the study funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Ontario Health, OMD engaged a network of stakeholders, including primary care providers, patients, regulators, EMR vendors, and AI solution providers, to examine AI scribe tools that aligned with real-world healthcare needs. OMD worked closely with Women's College Hospital's Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care and the eHealth Centre of Excellence on a comprehensive evaluation process. These partnerships enabled the co-designing and testing of AI scribe solutions to meet clinical and regulatory standards at local and provincial levels. By integrating clinician and patient feedback, OMD ensured the AI scribes addressed operational gaps and enhanced workflows.
The implementation phase introduced AI scribes into clinical environments, beginning with pilot studies to assess their effectiveness and alignment with the initial hypothesis. The results indicated a reduction in documentation time (70% or an average of three to four hours per week on after-hours administrative tasks), confirming AI scribes' potential to alleviate administrative burden and improve clinician wellbeing.
Education was crucial to successful AI scribe adoption during the pilot. Clinicians were provided with resources, hands-on training and support, helping them to integrate the technology, minimize administrative burden, and focus more on patient care. Building on the pilot's momentum, OMD continues to work with the Ministry of Health, Ontario Health, and the Ontario Medical Association to facilitate AI adoption by primary care clinicians. Supply Ontario has launched a procurement process to help primary care clinicians better access AI scribe products by qualified vendors to assist with streamlining administrative tasks, so clinicians can better focus on patient care.
Looking Ahead
Through planning and enacting a multipronged strategy, supported by partnerships, implementation plans, and educational initiatives, OMD is harnessing AI solutions to transform primary care in Ontario. This flexible framework serves as a model for future AI implementations across care settings, ensuring that AI remains a vital tool in addressing evolving healthcare needs.