EMR Specifications Overview
OntarioMD works with physicians, EMR vendors, provincial partners (e.g. Ministry of Health, Ontario Health, Government of New Brunswick, etc.) and other stakeholders, to develop and manage EMR Specifications. The EMR Specifications cover a range of clinical, business and technical requirements that certified EMR offerings support. An EMR Specification may contain one or more documents that include all the necessary information an EMR vendor needs to implement the specification.
EMR Specifications define a minimum set of consistent, repeatable requirements and obligations that drive EMR maturity in three categories:
1. Foundation |
e.g.: data, identity, privacy and security, hosting |
2. Functional |
e.g.: primary care baseline functionality, specialty specific requirements |
3. EHR Connectivity and Tooling |
e.g.: provincial lab and drug repositories, client registries, authentication, and authorization |
New and/or updated EMR Specifications will be introduced over time which will continue to advance the maturity of EMRs. EMR vendors with OMD certified EMR offerings will be notified of any pending/new/updated EMR Specifications and may be required to update their EMR offerings and be validated on the incremental requirements to maintain their EMR Certification status.
The following provides a brief overview and partial list of EMR Specifications in each of their respective categories:
FOUNDATION
Foundation EMR Specifications |
Purpose and Benefits |
EMR Core Data Set Standard |
Defines ~270 logical data elements that all certified EMRs support.
Helps ensure certified EMRs have the data required to participate in the provincial EHR and enhance physicians’ use of EMRs. |
EMR Hosting (for Hosted Offerings Only) |
Defines requirements for the hosted EMR (e.g., application, infrastructure, privacy & security, etc.) and business services the EMR vendor must provide.
Addresses physician barriers to adoption of ‘cloud-based’ EMRs by ensuring certified hosted EMRs are secure, highly available, and meet performance targets.
|
EMR Data Migration |
Defines how to physically migrate a portion of a patient’s record from one EMR offering to another.
Helps physicians adhere to the jurisdictions regulatory college in record keeping policies and decrease EMR data migration time and costs by specifying the data that needs to be migrated and the responsibilities of the stakeholders involved. |
FUNCTIONAL
Functional Specifications |
Purpose and Benefits |
Primary Care Baseline |
Defines functional requirements for EMRs and services provided by EMR vendors.
Ensures EMRs have functions valued by physicians (e.g., drug interaction checking, electronic claims submission, etc.) and that EMR vendors provide support services to help physicians use their EMR.
|
Chronic Disease Management |
Defines functional and logical data requirements to support the management of five chronic diseases: Diabetes; Asthma, Heart Failure, COPD, and Hypertension.
Ensures EMRs have a minimum set of functions and data to help physicians track, analyze, and report on patient’s chronic diseases and provide better care. |
EHR CONNECTIVITY AND TOOLS
EHR Connectivity and Tools specifications defines the requirements and expectations needed to connect to a jurisdiction’s available products and services in an EMR offering. New EMR Specifications are published as new jurisdictional products and services are made available. EMRs may only integrate to these jurisdictional products and services once they have been certified for the jurisdiction. Below is a table of the jurisdictional services, respectively.
Ontario |
New Brunswick |
Health Report Manager (HRM) |
EHR Clinical Viewer (ECV) |
Ontario Laboratory Information System (OLIS) |
Labs* |
eConsult |
Client Registry (CR) Query* |
Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR) |
|
Digital Health Immunization Repository (DHIR) |
|
*For latest information on availability check with
New Brunswick Department of Health (DoH)
For details regarding mandatory EHR Connectivity and Tools for EMR Certification, refer to the corresponding jurisdictions Certification Release. For all other information regarding the current EHR products and services, visit the EMR Specifications Library.
More Information
For more information on EMR Specifications, please visit the EMR Specifications Library
For more information about the development life cycle, please visit the EMR Specifications Development Life Cycle
For more information on obtaining EMR Certification and Mandatory EMR Specifications, please see the EMR Certification Overview