Fellow physicians and HDC partners:
We are pleased to announce that we have received funding to continue our work for at least the next 12 months thanks to the generous continued support from the General Practice Services Committee.
We can now accelerate the development of tools and infrastructure for a single unified platform that is inter-operable with all EMR products being used across the province.
The HDC solution is an immense undertaking and physician, partner and vendor engagement will be critical.
With your help, we will create an open source system that will enable the collaborative use of EMR data in a secure, trusted environment to improve health outcomes.
Thank you in advance for your time and support, and we welcome your questions and comments.
Dr. Bruce Hobson, Chair, HDC Board of Directors
First a bit of background on HDC
The Health Data Coalition (HDC) — a non-profit organization formed with support from the General Practices Services Committee (GPSC) and the Doctors of BC – is the result of the enthusiasm and dedication of a group of family physicians from across British Columbia, and their mutual passion for quality improvement, innovation and privacy protection.
They saw that the growing adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) is providing exciting opportunities to use clinical data to reflect on the pattern of patient care. They also knew that many of the most successful quality improvement endeavours in health care are being driven by physicians, and are following clear policies to ensure the privacy of patients and health care providers.
What are we trying to achieve?
HDC was created to improve individual practices, delivery of health services and population health outcomes by unlocking the immense potential of health care data available to physicians and their peers. As a coalition, we will move forward together, creating relevant opportunities to use meaningful data to enable quality improvement in primary care and support a learning health system.
What are the benefits to me, my clinic, and our profession?
We believe that in order to reflect physicians need to document what they do and watch the changes that occur over time. The HDC is an EMR agnostic IT platform that makes it possible to aggregate data across hundreds of clinics and providers while maintaining patient and provider confidentiality.
This data has multiple benefits: to support self-reflective practice for the individual physician member and small group peer learning as well as evaluation of PSP learning modules, division-led and provincial projects and BC Ministry of Health system planning and population metrics.
What can I do right now?
We are working with legacy testers from both the former PDC and AMCARE and recruiting new Beta product testers. More and more clinics are signing on to help improve the new web application.
But for most of you, the real work won’t begin until November. That’s when you will be asked to register, sign up, subscribe to channels of indicators, view various reports, and create shares and groups with peers.
Our first official launch of HDC 1.0 is scheduled in October for Oscar, Osler and MOIS EMR users.
Intrahealth PROFILE users will likely come on line in late 2016 and early 2017.
Whom can I contact to learn more?
Contact our Physician Engagement Lead, Cathy McGuinness at cathy.mcguinness@hdcbc.ca or call her at 604 307 7620