Becoming a Sole Practitioner Participant
To be eligible to be approved as a Participant in ClinicalConnect, healthcare organizations (including Sole Practitioners) must be a Health Information Custodian (HIC), and comply with the ClinicalConnect Terms & Conditions.
Background: Sole Practitioners (Physicians) can apply for access to ClinicalConnect as a Sole Practitioner Health Information Custodian Participant Organization. ClinicalConnect provides electronic access to your patients’ health information from all acute care hospitals, regional cancer programs and LHINs’ Home & Community Care Services in south west Ontario. In addition, physicians who use Ontario Health’s ONE® ID credentials as their means to access the ClinicalConnect portal, and have the necessary agreement(s) in place with Ontario Health, can be enabled with access to view their patients’ data from the following provincial data repositories:
• Acute and Community Care Clinical Data Repository (acCDR) consolidates patient data across selected hospitals and all 14 LHIN-HCC services. Learn more here.
• Diagnostic Imaging Common Service (DI Common Service) provides access to diagnostic images and corresponding reports from hospitals and independent health facilities. Learn more here.
• Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR) includes data and information from Ontario publicly-funded drugs and pharmacy services including Ontario Drug Benefits (ODB), OHIP+, Narcotics Monitoring System (NMS). Learn more here.
• Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS) provides access to lab test orders and results from hospitals, community labs and public health labs. Learn more here.
Did you know? Using ClinicalConnect and eConsult together works well to optimize patient care! Learn more.
Important Information Prior to Submitting Your Participation Agreement:
1. You must have a ONE ID credential when applying as a Sole Practitioner Participant, and you'll be asked to enter your ONE ID username in Part 5 of the Agreement. If you don’t already have a ONE ID account, register online by visiting the The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s (CPSO) website to register for a ONE ID account (and at the same time, you'll be prompted to review and agree to the Ontario Health Physician Agreement, required to be able to view data from provincial data repositories using ClinicalConnect). You can review the ONE ID CPSO Registration Guide on the Ontario Health website for more information about registering for a ONE ID credential and the Physician Agreement.
2. In Part 2 of the Participation Agreement, the location(s)/office(s) where you're seeking approval to use ClinicalConnect at must be listed as Practice Locations on your physician profile that's publicly available on The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) website. Please ensure your profile is up to date prior to submitting the Agreement.
3. In Part 6 of the Participation Agreement, you will be asked to choose if you want to be able to provision ClinicalConnect access for your private practice staff who work under your authority. By selecting yes, you'll be provided instructions on how to complete a ~20-minute eLearning module that explains how you'll use an ancillary, web-based system to create ClinicalConnect accounts for private practice staff, so they can you assist in the delivery of healthcare to your patients. By selecting No, the physician will not be able to provision ClinicalConnect accounts for their private practice staff however, this selection can be updated in the future by the approved Sole Practitioner (physician) emailing support@clinicalconnect.ca, and instructions to complete the eLearning module referred to above will be provided to the physician at that time.
Next Steps When Ready to Apply to Become a Sole Practitioner in ClinicalConnect:
Step 1: When you are ready and have time to complete the Participation Agreement in its entirety (estimated time requirement is 10 minutes), you may begin your submission online by clicking here: Participation Agreement for Sole Practitioners. If you are not sure what information to enter in the Agreement, a Tip Sheet for Sole Practitioners is available by clicking here.
Step 2: Your Participation Agreement will be reviewed by the ClinicalConnect Program Office. Assuming requirements thus far are met, physicians will be emailed the Sole Practitioner Attestation to complete. To preview the content of the Attestation, please click here, noting that only the fillable PDF version emailed to you will be accepted as part of your application. It is expected that the Sole Practitioner Attestation be returned within 30 calendar days to the ClinicalConnect Program Office.
Please be advised that by this stage, the ClinicalConnect Program Office, on your behalf, will have submitted some entries from your Participation Agreement (Step 1) to Ontario Health; this information is used to assess your eligibility to be authorized to view data from the provincial repositories listed above, once an approved Participant in ClinicalConnect. As such, a representative of the ClinicalConnect Program Office will contact you directly to complete any outstanding Ontario Health agreements, which commonly includes their Client Information Form (CIF).
Step 3: Your Sole Practitioner Attestation will be reviewed by the ClinicalConnect Program Office. Assuming requirements are met thus far, and if you indicated in your Participation Agreement that you do want to be able to provision ClinicalConnect access for your staff, you will be emailed instructions to complete a short (~20 minute), one-time, Sole Practitioner eLearning module. This eLearning module serves as a reminder of your obligations as a Participant in ClinicalConnect, and provides instructions on how you will be able to use the Access Governance System to create, manage and attest ClinicalConnect accounts for your office staff. If you chose not to be able to provision access for your staff, you'll move onto Step 4 below.
Step 4: Once your eLearning module is complete (if applicable) and account configuration details from Ontario Health have been received by the ClinicalConnect Program Office, physicians will be notified by email that their access to both ClinicalConnect (including provincial data repositories, if applicable), and the Access Governance System (for staff account management, if applicable), has been enabled.
Physicians/Agreement Signatories should note the following minimum system/internet browser requirements when submitting the ClinicalConnect Participation Agreement (an online form):
Microsoft Edge | Latest Version |
Mozilla Firefox | Latest Version |
Google Chrome | Latest Version |
Apple Safari (Mac OS only) | 6.2 or above |
Minimum system requirements if completing Participation Agreement on mobile devices:
Apple | iOS 7.0 or above |
Android | 4.0 or above |