TORONTO, May 28, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OntarioMD is doubly delighted to announce that the Insights4Care EMR Quality Dashboard is the winner of the Canadian Health Informatics Award (CHIA) for Project Implementation Team of the Year. OntarioMD also congratulates Dr. Kevin Samson, a family physician from Rockwood, Ontario, and an OntarioMD Physician Peer Leader, for winning the inaugural CHIA for Clinical Innovator. The awards were presented at the e-Health Conference on May 27.

The Insights4Care EMR Quality Dashboard gives clinicians real-time access to a population view of the wealth of patient data they have collected in their electronic medical records (EMRs), based on recognized provincial indicators, for the first time. Examples of some of the indicators available in the Dashboard include number of diabetics, number of patients taking opioids, number of smokers, those overdue for cancer screening follow-up, etc. Clinicians can drill down to patient-level data for better patient outcomes, better follow-up care and to identify trends. Other digital health solutions only aggregate patient data centrally for research or population health purposes and cannot drill down to the individual patient?. OntarioMD is collaborating with OSCAR EMR and TELUS Health to give their users access to the EMR Quality Dashboard through their certified EMRs, but the Dashboard will expand to all certified EMR products during the provincial rollout?. The EMR Quality Dashboard was recognized by Digital Health Canada and ITAC Health for its excellence in teamwork, achieving its deliverables, and demonstrating outstanding results in user adoption and data quality leading to improved population health management.

Dr. Kevin Samson has shown outstanding leadership in advancing the use of EMRs and other digital health tools in clinical practice resulting in improved provider and patient experiences and outcomes. Dr. Samson is tireless digital health ambassador who finds time to sit on many other regional and provincial committees. His colleagues have recognized him as a digital health innovator for his development of an opioid toolbar for EMRs and for his advisory work that has influenced OntarioMD’s Health Report Manager (HRM), eConsult and the EMR Quality Dashboard. As an OntarioMD Physician Peer Leader, he has served as a role model, mentoring hundreds of clinicians in the use of digital health to improve the quality of patient care and practice efficiency.

OntarioMD’s dedication to providing value to the Ontario health system through its people and products has been recognized not only this year, but with CHIAs won in 2015 for HRM, and 2017 for eConsult deployment and EMR integration and for the leadership demonstrated by its Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Darren Larsen. The CHIA awards pay tribute to people, projects and organizations across Canada that have demonstrated excellence, leadership and innovation in health informatics. It is these qualities that have made OntarioMD a successful advisor to Ontario physicians and a successful delivery partner to organizations that need to deploy their products to physicians and nurse practitioners in all parts of the province.

“OntarioMD is very proud of the difference the EMR Quality Dashboard is making to the care Ontarians are receiving,” said Sarah Hutchison, CEO of OntarioMD, “and that both the Dashboard and one of its most well-known advocates, Dr. Kevin Samson, have been acknowledged for their contributions to digital health in Ontario and beyond its borders.”

For more information on the EMR Quality Dashboard, Peer Leaders and other OntarioMD initiatives that are providing value to the health system and will be part of the digital health strategy for Ontario Health Teams, please visit OntarioMD.ca.

About OntarioMD

OntarioMD is the leader in primary care digital health in Ontario and is a valuable system partner for other organizations who wish to implement their solutions to the primary care sector. It manages programs and services that connect physician practices that use certified EMRs to more patient data collected outside primary care settings. OntarioMD also supports Ontario's physicians with consultations and practical advice from Peer Leaders and experienced staff who help them optimize their EMR use to enhance patient care and achieve greater practice efficiency. The organization offers valuable, fully-accredited educational opportunities for physicians annually at its conferences and seminars.

More than 17,000 clinicians are benefitting from OntarioMD services: Health Report Manager (HRM), eNotifications, eConsult-EMR Integration, OLIS Deployment, EMR Quality Dashboard, Peer Leaders, and the EMR Practice Enhancement Program. For more information about these services, please visit OntarioMD.ca.

OntarioMD is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ontario Medical Association and is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c7cf7bcd-59d2-4cbc-8375-34ae61633189

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a9affd55-028f-4cde-85a1-ac1251bc0e00

For more information:

Kathy Tudor

Director, Communications & Marketing

OntarioMD 

(416) 623-1248