Digital Health Roadmap Pillars 4 & 5
Dear SGFP Members,
Today we continue our deep-dive series into our Digital Health Team’s Actionable Roadmap for Ontario’s Digital Health. It has been just a few weeks since the government announced the province-wide Primary Care Medical Record system. Details continue to emerge, and your SGFP is ready to contribute meaningfully at every step.
Below, our Digital Health Team explores Pillars 4 and 5 of their paper, two areas that have become even more relevant since this announcement.
Warm Regards,
Dr. Dave Barber, Chair, SGFP
SGFP Digital Health Team
Dear Colleagues,
We have lots to cover so we’ll jump right in.
Pillar 4: Ending Vendor Lock-In and Building True Interoperability
The government’s announcement of a new interoperable primary care medical record system makes this pillar more urgent — and more achievable — than ever. For years, family physicians have been constrained by vendor lock-in that limits innovation, inflates costs, and restricts access to their own clinical data.
Our roadmap calls for:
- Ending vendor lock-in to create an open, competitive market that drives down costs and improves quality
- Ensuring physicians have full access to their own data, including the ability to move it easily between systems
- Embedding interoperability as a requirement, not an afterthought, so information flows seamlessly across the system
Ontario already has strong building blocks in place — including POPLAR — demonstrating that interoperability is not theoretical. It’s happening now, and it can scale.
The shift toward a provincial medical record system is an opportunity to get this right. SGFP will be pushing for a model that prioritizes physician autonomy, data portability, and system-wide interoperability from day one.
Pillar 5: Workflow-First Design and Innovation That Starts with Physicians
A new medical record system will only succeed if it improves — not complicates — the daily work of family physicians. That’s why our roadmap emphasizes a workflow-first approach to digital health design.
This includes:
- A provincial practice-facilitator workforce to support implementation, optimization, and ongoing workflow improvements
- A physician-guided AI sandbox to safely test emerging tools, reduce administrative burden, and accelerate innovation
- A unified digital attachment registry to connect patients to primary care and streamline transitions
These elements are essential complements to any new medical record system. Without them, Ontario risks repeating past mistakes: technology that adds clicks, increases burden, and fails to reflect the realities of front-line care.
As the province moves forward, SGFP will continue advocating for a system built around how family physicians actually work — not how technology vendors imagine they work.
One pillar left in our series, watch for it soon.
Sincerely,
The SGFP Digital Health Team
Dr. Kevin Brophy, Physician Lead
Barbra McCaffrey, Co-Lead
Dr. Anushiya Ganeshalingam
Dr. Naila Kassam
Dr. Stan Spacek
Dr. Keith Thompson
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