skip to main content

OMD Certification Program


Overview

The OMD Certification Program ensures that vendors and their OMD certified products have met a minimum set of requirements necessary to participate as a point of service in the EHR.

OMD specifications and/or certification is a recognized framework for access and entitlement to EHR assets and advancing the maturity of EMRs with the focus in three key areas:

Foundational

  • Data and messaging standards, identity management, privacy and security and cloud/hosting services

EMR – EHR Integration

  • To labs repositories, report delivery, event notifications, provincial immunization and drug repositories and more

Functionality

  • In-EMR data analytics dashboard leveraging national indicators for primary care, chronic disease indicators
  • Ensure EMRs maintain minimal clinical functionality to support practice workflows centred around the Cumulative Patient Profile

The OMD Certification Program holds vendors to a code of conduct for program participation such as keeping their products aligned to the latest OMD specifications, data ownership, data custody, data residency, liability, remediation, data migration, legislative alignment, advertising, etc.

  • Ontario requires OMD Certification for access and entitlement to provincial EHR products and services
  • A well established and refined process for vendor management and remediation in ensuring ongoing compliance
  • Validation and certification are ongoing and must be continually maintained. Certification is not a one-time gate as system maturity is ever-changing.
  • Over 20,000 clinicians use EMR products validated by OMD
  • Over 13,000 clinicians use EMR integrated interfaces to EHR products and services validated by OMD (e.g., HRM®, OLIS, eConsult, i4C dashboard)
  • 500+ Hospital Sites' and Independent Health Facilities' interfaces have been validated and managed by OMD for health report delivery


OMD Certification Fundamentals

Vendor products must be certified by OMD as a requirement for access to provincial EHR solutions and services such as OLIS, HRM, eConsult, DHIR, DHDR, etc.

To attain and maintain certification, a vendor product must:

  • be validated and maintain its alignment with applicable OMD specifications
  • uphold obligations as set forth in a Vendor Certification Agreement

Various events may trigger (re-)validation, conformance assessments or other investigations.

  • Monthly reporting, semi-annual reviews, incident reporting
  • Concerns raised by physicians, vendors or other stakeholders
  • Updated/New Specifications

For additional information see EMR Certification Overview



Specifications

OMD Specifications define a minimum set of requirements that support the continual evolution of EMRs, HIS, and other point-of-service solutions.

  • Foundational (e.g., Core Data Set Standard, Hosting, Privacy and Security, Data Migration)
  • EHR connectivity and tools (e.g.: Health Report Manager (HRM), Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS), eConsult, Digital Health Immunization Repository (DHIR), Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR))
  • Functional requirements (e.g., i4C Dashboard, Primary Care Baseline)

Clinical involvement is critical to the development of all OMD Specifications which includes the consistent use of messaging and data standards.

Further information can be found in the EMR Specifications Library



Validation

Validation is a process which evaluates a product's alignment with OMD specifications:

  1. For EHR access, vendors must demonstrate their product has successfully aligned to the respective requirements for access to provincial EHR assets. Note that there may be multiple validations necessary to qualify for EHR access, for example, OMD EMR Certification.
  2. For OMD Certification, this includes a five-stage process for certification, including a set of specifications that provides details of the vendor's product and its alignment to the applicable OMD Specifications.

Additional details can be found in the EMR Validation Overview

 

Vendor Management

A robust vendor engagement program manages the daily business and technology-driven engagement with vendors toward advancing EMR maturity.

Monthly vendor engagements with EVERY certified vendor promoting new and emerging roadmaps, issues and events affecting the current landscape (e.g. Vendor Sessions which bring together digital health stakeholders to an opportunity to present content to the vendors.)

Semi-annual executive-level engagements with EVERY certified vendor promoting strategic priorities, emerging trends, and provincial roadmaps (e.g. virtual visits, provincial EMR integrations, etc.)

Private per-vendor collaboration portal for vendors with certified products (e.g. archive of notifications to vendors, vendor session artefacts, reporting templates, etc.)

Centralized support and facilitation of escalations related to EMRs and engagements related to provincial integration initiatives from all facets of the digital health system including clinicians, system stakeholders, vendors, etc. (e.g., data migration, HRM product inquiry, COVID-19 notifications, etc.)

For inquiries, escalation, or general comments, please contact emr@ontariomd.com.