Spring 2025 Edition of the West Deployment Team Newsletter
Welcome to the Spring 2025 Edition of the West Deployment Team Newsletter for health professionals in the West Region!
Our West Deployment Team supports the deployment of eConsult in South West and Waterloo Wellington, and eReferral across South West, Waterloo Wellington, Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant, and Erie St. Clair.
Big Announcement!
If you have received our other quarterly newsletters in the past, you may have already noticed something different. We have exciting news to share!
The trusted digital health partner that you have known as the eHealth Centre of Excellence has rebranded and is now Amplify Care!
As part of our ongoing growth and evolution, the name ‘Amplify Care’ was chosen to better reflect our commitment to amplify the voice of clinicians in digital health. Our new name represents listening and responding to feedback, therefore amplifying the voices of clinicians and primary care providers. Amplify Care is more than just a name; it is a promise to continue providing and supporting healthcare professionals with digital health solutions that work for them and for their patients.
The team at Amplify Care appreciates and values the work we have done together so far, and we look forward to continuing to do so!
In this Issue:
- Discover newly added services and programs accepting eReferrals
- Discover new specialists available to respond to your eConsults
- eReferral Onboarding Pause
- West Region Highlights
- Call for Participation: Fall Prevention Programs in the Waterloo Wellington Region
- eReferral News & Updates:
- Directory Listing User Interface Updates
- Change in London Health Sciences’ Centre Division of Surgery Central Intake
- Organizational Name Change in Ocean – Grand River Hospital & St. Mary’s General Hospital
- Standardized eReferral Forms
- eConsult News & Updates:
- Record-Breaking eConsults
- Setting Priority Regions to Access Regional BASE Managed Specialty Groups
- eConsult BASE Specialty Group Information
- Tip for eConsult Users
- Digital Twin
- Amplify Mission
- Contact Information
eReferral and eConsult in the West Region
Discover newly added services and programs live on Ocean eReferral, and new Specialists who have been onboarded to respond to eConsults:
eReferral:
- Dr. Amelia Mary Fitzgerald – Optometry (WW)
- Dr. Elaine Tang – General Surgery (SW)
- Dr. Gregory Said Jasey – Orthopedic Surgery (ESC)
- Dr. Kyle Thiessen – Optometry (WW)
- Dr. Michael Cameron McCaffrey – Orthopedic Surgery (ESC)
- Dr. Robert E. Stodulka – Optometry (WW)
- Mental Health Connections (ESC)
The new specialists and programs that have recently gone live to receive electronic referrals were part of the approved onboarding list prior to Ontario Health’s initiation of the public procurement for Vendors of Record (VOR) for Referral Management Solutions (RMS).
For information on all receiving sites currently available, please visit the Ocean Healthmap.
eConsult (SW & WW Regions Only)
- Dr. Mei Chen – Psychiatry (WW)
- Dr. Michael Sattin – Internal Medicine (SW)
- Provincial Penicillin Allergy Group
- COMING SOON – Provincial Women’s Sexual Health Group
eReferral Onboarding Pause
There is currently a pause on onboarding new eReferral senders and receivers while Ontario Health is undergoing a public procurement through a Request for Proposal for Vendors of Record to provide eReferral Management Solution(s).
If you are already set up with eReferral and need support or additional training, please reach out to your Change Management Specialist, or email eReferral@amplifycare.com.
If you would like to be added to our onboarding queue, please fill out the following form: eReferral Onboarding Queue Form.
Highlights in the West Region
eReferral
eConsult (SW & WW only)
Regional eReferral Highlights
Call for Participation: Fall Prevention Exercise Programs in WW
The Bone Health and Exercise Science Lab at the University of Waterloo is conducting a study in collaboration with Amplify Care called “Development and implementation of a behaviour change intervention: Exercise eReferral”.
Our goal is to better understand healthcare professionals’ knowledge of community fall prevention exercise services, and to get perspectives on how to raise awareness and promote eReferral for community exercise classes.
Please see below for more details about this opportunity.
If you are interested in participating, please click HERE or email Nicholas Tibert at ntibert@uwaterloo.ca.
Update: Directory Listing Administrative Features
Ocean eReferral users with Administrative privileges in their Ocean site will notice a new user interface to the Directory Listings section in the Admin menu, which went live on April 3rd, 2025.
Each Directory Listing now contains three main tabs: Listing Information, Health Service Offerings, and Enablement.
Some of the new improvements in the new interface include:
- New show/hide logic for various settings
- Updated searchable dropdown components
- New term of “eRequest”*
- Individual versus group information can now be clearly indicated on listings
- Health Service Offering settings can now be easily configured in their own tab, with simplified ‘Yes/No’ options for accepting the various eRequest types
- New status display in the top right of the listing configuration page to indicate if the listing is live and accepting eRequests or in ‘Test Mode’
For more information about the updates to the Directory Listings section of the Admin menu, please refer to the OceanMD website.
*The term ‘eRequest’ will be used going forward in the Ocean platform to encompass both eReferral and eConsult, which can both be submitted via Ocean in certain provinces.
Update: LHSC Division of Surgery Central Intake
There has been a recent update to the London Health Science Centre’s (LHSC) General Surgery Central Intake.
The Division of General Surgery at London Health Sciences Centre, which previously acted as a single point of access for colonoscopy, gallbladder and hernia referrals, has updated its referral processes.
The London Health Sciences Centre General Surgery Central Intake will continue to accept referrals for inguinal hernia, umbilical hernia and gallbladder consultations.
Referrals for colonoscopy will no longer be processed through this Central Intake and should now be sent directly to the requested surgeon.
Update: Organization Name Change in Ocean
Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital are celebrating their recent merger into a single, integrated hospital network – Waterloo Regional Health Network!
You may have already noticed the new Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) logo and new hospital site names in the Ocean Healthmap as our team works together with WRHN to transition and update their many Ocean Directory Listings.
Ocean eReferral users who have saved Grand River Hospital and/or St. Mary’s General Hospital Directory listings as Favourites will be pleased to know that these saved links will continue to direct them to the appropriate Directory Listing in the Ocean Healthmap, regardless of the name change to one of Waterloo Regional Health Network’s sites:
- WRHN @ Midtown – formerly Grand River Hospital’s KW Campus
- WRHN @ Chicopee – formerly Freeport Campus
- WRHN @ Queen’s Blvd. – formerly St. Mary’s General Hospital
- WRHN @ The Boardwalk – formerly St. Mary’s General Hospital Airway Clinic
If you have any questions or notice any instances of legacy hospital site names in the Ocean Healthmap, please feel free to reach out to eReferral@amplifycare.com.
Standardized Forms in Ontario
In partnership with Ontario Health, Amplify Care is co-leading the eReferral Forms Standardization Initiative.
The goal of this initiative is to reduce the existing variation in eReferral forms across the province by creating standardized eReferral forms.
Amplify Care has led the planning and development of eReferral since 2017, with the eReferral Program now including all six Ontario Health regions and over 3.3 million eReferrals sent! With such a rapidly growing program, the number of eReferral forms has also rapidly increased, resulting in a myriad of forms, even within the same specialties. This Provincial eReferral Forms Standardization project will consolidate and standardize the number of eReferral forms in alignment with best practices.
This project builds upon previous work done by a Best Practices Working Group. An open clinical review, which was available to all primary care clinicians and specialists in the province, began on January 20th and resulted in 17 priority specialties being chosen for phase one of this standardization work. In collaboration with Ontario Health, Amplify Care engaged with the eServices Program’s current eReferral users, the Ontario Medical Association, Ontario Primary Care Council, and Nurse Practitioners Association of Ontario to encourage clinicians to participate. The final recommended standardized forms were forwarded to Ontario Health governance for review and approval in early April.
Having standardized eReferral forms available will enable better patient care and improve the provider experience by capturing the necessary clinical information in a consistent format. Please reach out to eReferral@amplifycare.com with any questions about this important work.
Record-Breaking eConsults Sent!
The record has been broken for the number of eConsults sent in a month in Ontario! In March 2025, an incredible 10,861 eConsults were completed with 1,731 sent from the South West and Waterloo Wellington regions!
The improved care coordination and collaboration between clinicians enabled through eConsult means that patients receive the care they need quickly and efficiently. Timely access to specialist advice for this many cases is worth celebrating!
Thank you to all of the specialists who share their knowledge and guide patient care through eConsult, and thank you as well to all of the sending clinicians utilizing this tool in order to provide the best care possible for their patients.
Setting Priority Regions for eConsult in OTN
Ontario eConsult supports communities of practice and regional knowledge sharing between clinicians through the development of Regional BASE™ Managed Groups.
Clinicians using eConsult may have their case directed to a specialist in their region, rather than elsewhere in the province by setting their priority regions on the OTNhub. Cases sent using the BASE™ Managed Specialty model will be automatically directed to the Provincial BASE™ Managed Groups where no Regional Group exists.
To access your Regional eConsult BASE™ Managed Specialty Groups, you will need to select your priority regions on the OTNhub. Please review the instructions below or watch the eConsult Centre of Excellence’s video to learn how to make these changes. Please note, these changes cannot be completed by a delegate.
The Ontario eConsult service operates through two models on the OTNhub web-platform: the BASE™ Managed Specialty Model and Direct to Specialist. The BASE™ Managed model allows clinicians to send eConsult cases to a regional or provincial group, by specialty or sub-specialty, and are assigned based on specialist availability. Building on the success of the Provincial BASE™ Managed Specialty model, Ontario eConsult has expanded this offering through the development of Regional BASE™ Managed groups. These groups are managed by your Regional eConsult Deployment Team in collaboration with the eConsult Centre of Excellence (eCOE).
To set your Priority Regions:
- In OTN, click the User Panel icon in the top right and select Service Settings.
2. Select your priority regions from the dropdown list. You can select multiple regions and rank them in order of your preference. Note that your eConsults may still be directed to provincial BASE groups if the specialty you have chosen is not available in your priority region(s).
3. Click Save at the top of the page once you have made your choices.
To learn more or to request assistance with setting your priority regions, please contact Andrea Mathieu (andrea.mathieu@amplifycare.com) or Alysson Korver (alysson.korver@amplifycare.com).
For all other program-related feedback, please contact eConsultCOE@toh.ca.
eConsult Base Group Information
The eConsult Centre of Excellence has added a new page to their website so that clinicians can have easier access to the BASE groups available in their regions.
Please click HERE for up-to-date lists of Regional and Provincial BASE groups available for your eConsults!
Tip for eConsult Users
Some eConsult users have noted issues when logging into OTN with their OneID credentials. OneID has identified the issue and they are working on a fix with an upcoming release. In the interim, users have found that clearing their browser cache temporarily resolves the issue of the login page appearing repeatedly.
If you continue to have issues logging into OTN, please reach out to Andrea Mathieu (andrea.mathieu@amplifycare.com) or Alysson Korver (alysson.korver@amplifycare.com).
Clinical Workflow Automation in Primary Care with Digital Twin
Amplify Care is excited to be partnering with Verto, a leader in digital twin technology, to explore how artificial intelligence can support automation in clinical workflows. This project marks the first phase of our broader vision to streamline care delivery and enhance population health management using AI-powered tools.
Through this collaboration, we are leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) to extract and structure data from free-text clinical notes. The goal is to improve EMR data quality and deliver actionable insights that reduce administrative burden, improve patient care, and support real-time cohort management for high-risk populations.
As an initial solution supporting this effort, the Population Health Management Panel (PHMP) has been developed to help primary care clinicians proactively identify and prioritize patients from their roster who may benefit from additional or preventive care. By standardizing clinical coding and using digital twin technology, the PHMP unlocks greater insights from the clinical notes and allows for targeted preventative interventions, empowering clinicians with more confidence and clarity in their daily practice.
This exploratory work will inform the safe, ethical, and effective automation of clinical workflows in the future.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to us at virtualassistants@amplifycare.com to find out how this project could support your practice and enhance care for your patients!
Amplify Care is excited to be partnering with Verto, a leader in digital twin technology, to explore how artificial intelligence can support automation in clinical workflows. This project marks the first phase of our broader vision to streamline care delivery and enhance population health management using AI-powered tools.
Through this collaboration, we are leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) to extract and structure data from free-text clinical notes. The goal is to improve EMR data quality and deliver actionable insights that reduce administrative burden, improve patient care, and support real-time cohort management for high-risk populations.
As an initial solution supporting this effort, the Population Health Management Panel (PHMP) has been developed to help primary care clinicians proactively identify and prioritize patients from their roster who may benefit from additional or preventive care. By standardizing clinical coding and using digital twin technology, the PHMP unlocks greater insights from the clinical notes and allows for targeted preventative interventions, empowering clinicians with more confidence and clarity in their daily practice.
This exploratory work will inform the safe, ethical, and effective automation of clinical workflows in the future.
Interested in learning more? Reach out to us at virtualassistants@amplifycare.com to find out how this project could support your practice and enhance care for your patients!