Development of a draft pan-Canadian primary health care electronic medical record content standard

In collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) led the development of the draft pan-Canadian primary health care (PHC) electronic medical record (EMR) content standard to be used in EMR applications across the country to support PHC data capture and information use and improved health system management. To achieve this goal, CIHI initiated the following activities: stakeholder engagement, information requirements gathering and adoption and implementation promotion of the common content standard for wide-spread use. The resulting pan-Canadian standardized data set will allow consistent data capture that will improve understanding and ability to report on PHC utilization and access, chronic disease prevention and management, health promotion, medication usage, patient safety, quality of care including patient safety and outcomes. The standard will improve patient care information by providing the structured comparable information needed to care for patients over time and across the continuum of care. Standards support clinical practice reminders and alerts, improvements in operating efficiencies, onscreen feedback reports to PHC providers and the ability to look at clinical trends over time. This standard will improve the flow of information by providing standardized information to providers at points on the continuum of care leading to better coordination of care and a reduction of repeat tests. Lastly, a common content standard will improve the health system use of data; by enabling aggregation and analysis of comparable standardized health information, clinicians, jurisdictions, and regions can benefit from using this data for more effective planning and policy decisions. The jurisdictions and clinicians, supported by CIHI and Canada Health Infoway will continue to work together with other key stakeholders, such as vendors to support the adoption and implementation of this standard into future jurisdictional EMR vendor specifications.