SGFP Advocacy for Interoperability and Ending Vendor Lock-in; Dr. Ma Court Case Update
Dear SGFP Members,
At the recent meeting of the SGFP Executive, we engaged in robust discussion on issues impacting all family physicians: vendor lock-in and interoperability. Specifically, we discussed support of the federal Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill C-72), the national campaign known as Renew 72 advocating for its reintroduction, central intake, and a number of policy positions on digital health. In the coming weeks and months we will share more details on all of these topics.
Today I’d like to highlight our advocacy and support for Connected Care for Canadians and why it matters for family physicians in Ontario.
Renew 72 is pressing Parliament to reintroduce and pass Bill C-72. At its heart, the legislation is about patient safety and modernizing Canada’s health data standards so that patients, family doctors and all clinicians in a patient’s circle of care can securely access and share information across systems.
Mandating that health technology vendors comply with pan-Canadian common standards is an important step in ending vendor lock-in. Ending vendor 'data blocking' is essential to fix our fragmented system, reduce the crushing administrative burden on physicians, and, most importantly, improve patient safety. This legislation is a critical step to finally give doctors the connected tools they need to provide modern, high-quality care, allowing us to focus on our patients, not on manual data entry.
We believe that supporting this bill will help generate the momentum we need here in Ontario to finally move toward a more connected provincial system. Our systems remain siloed, and family physicians continue to shoulder the burden of manual data entry and chasing information across disconnected platforms. We are past-due to start the set-up for interoperability in Ontario.
Your SGFP advocacy is not just passive endorsement of the bill; we are actively promoting the principles of family physician leadership, family physician oversight, and a workflow-first approach with government and other system partners. Interoperability must be designed to fit the realities of practice, not built as tools that busy clinicians are then asked to adapt to. With these guardrails in place, interoperability will not only benefit patients but also reduce administrative burden, and restore time for the work that matters most, caring for people.
You can see SGFP’s formal endorsement on the Renew 72 website.
Update on Dr. Elaine Ma Court Case
Following my letter of support for Dr. Ma last week, I want to provide members with an update on the court proceedings. Many of you wrote to us with empathetic messages for Dr. Ma, recognizing that the rules at issue are outdated and unclear, and that this situation could have happened to any one of us taking bold action to care for Ontarians.
The hearing has now concluded, and we await the court’s decision. The timing is uncertain, it could be released quickly or it may take several months. Importantly, members should know that the OMA supported Dr. Ma by securing legal intervenor status. This allowed the OMA to contribute to the process and ensure physician perspectives were heard, while respecting the court’s role in remaining neutral and not taking sides.
Warm Regards,
Dr. Dave Barber
Chair, SGFP
Other Resources
Cancer Care Talks Webinar: O-RADSTM in Practice
The Cancer Care Integration and Disease Advisory Program at Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) will be hosting a Cancer Care Talks Webinar on O-RADSTM in Practice: Enhancing Diagnostic Accuracy and Clinical Decision-Making for Ovarian Cancers, on January 20th, 2026, from 5:30 – 7:00 PM.
Agenda topics include:
- Overview of Ovarian Masses and Importance of Standardized Reporting
- Introduction to O-RADSTM
- Emerging Evidence: Sub-stratification of O-RADS 4TM
- Reading and Applying O-RADSTM Reports: How to integrate imaging results into clinical management of ovarian masses
- Case-Based Learning: Ontario Context
- Q&A
Action: Please CLICK HERE to register for the webinar
Resource Sharing: If you have information about a news item, policy, survey or event you wish to share with SGFP members, please review the criteria and provide the following required information for us to include in this section of the newsletter. Please send this submission to: ChairLetterSGFP@outlook.com