A Goderich doctor’s initiative to streamline the crush of electronic forms has earned him the Award of Excellence from the Ontario College of Family Physicians.
Dr. Paul Gill estimates his team has saved 1,900 clinic hours so far, preventing a lot of frustration.
“It took up so much of our time,” he says.
When Gill set up his practice six years ago, he planned on focusing as much time with patients as possible, but he quickly realized he and his staff were instead spending too many hours filling out hundreds upon hundreds of online health forms.
“That time is being spent really doing admin work and digitization work that could be better spent recouping that time and putting it back towards patient care,” says Gill.
With as many as 600 unique forms to deal with, many designed for specialists at individual clinics or hospitals across southwestern Ontario, Gill felt it was time to stop the waste.
He brought together hundreds of doctors and IT experts from across the southwest Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to create standardized electronic forms for all primary care offices in southern Ontario.
In the past year, Gill adds, 80 of those 600 forms have been streamlined, allowing Gill to go back to what he does best: treating patients.
“I’m a doctor,” he says. “Tech isn’t my specialty.”
