Ontario Helping Family Doctors Put Patients before Paperwork

To help primary care providers spend more time with patients, our government is reducing unnecessary visits to doctors for sick notes and expanding an innovative program to more than 150 primary care providers that safely uses artificial intelligence to automatically summarize or transcribe conversations with patients, who consent, into electronic medical notes.

These initiatives, alongside others aimed at putting patients over paperwork, will result in a better patient experience, more accurate records and free up to 95,000 hours annually for physicians to put back into their practices caring for patients. 

• “Axe the fax” to replace fax machines over the next few years to speed up diagnosis, referrals and treatments while improving the privacy of patient’s health information.
• Expanding eServices to digitize more referral and consultation forms so they can be conveniently shared electronically in a timely manner to obtain specialist advice, often eliminating the need for an in-person specialist visit entirely.
• Improving the eForms platform to use more digital tools that make it convenient for providers to autofill and share forms.
• Working with the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) to streamline and simplify 12 key government medical forms that are burdensome, as well as digitizing and integrating more forms into electronic medical records.
• Accelerating the expansion of the centralized waitlist program for surgical and diagnostic services that will take the guesswork out of the referral process and provide faster access to care for patients.
• Part of:  Your Health: A Plan For Connected and Convenient Care

Learn more:  Ontario Helping Family Doctors Put Patients Before Paperwork