Ontario EHR Interoperability Standards

Patients benefit if their health information is in the hands of their health care providers at the point of care. Standards play a critical role in this, by providing consistency to the collection and exchange of patient information across the health care system.

Standards are the building blocks of electronic health records. They allow one physician to define and send the results of an X-ray or CT scan to another, without having to worry about what technology they use.

In this case, we say the patient record is interoperable, meaning that health information will rapidly move between, and be instantly understood by, different electronic record-keeping systems. This means that any time an Ontarian comes into contact with the health care system, their care provider will have immediate electronic access to all secure, pertinent and accurate patient information. That’s the power, and criticality, of standards.
Discover what types of information we collect in our digital health assets by referencing this downloadable EHR data dictionary. A point-in-time capture of the meta-data and reference data supported by our interoperability standards, the dictionary outlines information about standards conformity for messaging and content.