OSCAR McGill

Having not written a prescritpion manually for 10 years it was a massive shock coming to Canada in fall 2002. Now 5 years later once again the familiar decision support helping ensure accurate dosage and avoid interactions is back helping me prescribe more safely. The fact that it is legible and quick also helps. Like any EMR installation this was not without its teething problems. Which restaurant should we take the OSCAR team to the day they arrived was one of the main ones.
Seriously I was amazed at how quick they were. They arrived and within two hours there was a server with OSCAR ready to roll. Of course the staff have to learn how to register patients, make appointments and generally get familiar with the system and all this takes time. Doctors are just starting to use the system clinically and again there is a learning curve. However I have learnt something from three EMR installations I have run in the past and the advice to use it only for a couple of consultations per clinic to start with, so that one builds experience without stopping clinical workflow, has proved invaluable.
So we have a an EMR at minimal cost. It works, and does what we want, and because its open source if there is anything we want to improve we can change it albeit with some helpful programming support.
Have there been any nasty surprises? No
Does it do what we wanted? Yes
Am I satisfied? Very

However the real proof will be in 3 months when my target is to have had over 1000 consultations recorded by clinicians. My second target is that within 6 months 50% of consultations are recorded electronically and by 1 year 90%.


Martin Dawes

Chair Family Medicine

McGill University