Volume 10 | June 2021
HITS eHealth Office
eConsult Insider
eConsult in Long Term Care
Patients in long-term care homes face barriers to accessing specialist advice, but electronic consultation has the potential to improve access for these patients.

eConsult is a secure web-based tool, hosted on OTNHub, that allows physicians or nurse practitioners timely access to specialist advice for all long-term care residents, often eliminating the need for an in-person or virtual specialist visit. There is no cost for long-term care homes to use eConsult. 

There are over 100 specialties and subspecialties available on eConsult including: 

  • Dermatology
  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Care of the Elderly
  • Frailty Management
  • GeriMedRisk
  • Psychiatry 
  • Infectious Disease including COVID-19 advice 

eConsult has shown positive impacts in long term care, with providers and caregivers rating it highly and encouraging wide-spread adoption.

In 2018, an academic article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Director’s Association (JAMDA), demonstrating the feasibility of implementing eConsult in LTC settings.The complete paper is published for open access and is available here. An infographic highlighting the main findings of the study is available on the eConsult Centre of Excellence website here. 

The HITS eHealth Office is available to support your LTC organization with the adoption of eConsult, including signing up and training physicians and nurse practitioners and assisting with incorporating eConsult into your clinical workflow. 
eConsult Tip of the Month
Did you know you can search your past eConsults? Whether you want to review how a previous case was handled or export a case's details to your EMR, eConsult looks for a match with your search term in the following fields:

  • Patient Name
  • Requester Name
  • Specialist or Group Name
  • If case sent to a BASE Managed Specialty Group: Category and Option
  • Case ID
  • Request Description (details of clinical question)
  • Notes
eConsult Impact
Data as of April 30, 2021. This data has been reproduced with permission from the Ontario eConsult Centre of Excellence. For more information, please contact eConsult@toh.ca.
Insight into Current Referral Workflows
The HITS eHealth Office is now a participating partner in The Ontario eServices Program. The Ontario eServices Program delivers digital services that support clinical workflows and facilitates smoother transitions in care and an improved patient experience.

The eConsult Centre of Excellence conducted a survey to primary care providers and specialists with access to eConsult in late 2020 in order to understand variation and challenges with existing referral workflows across the province to help guide the planning and development of eServices.

Click the Image to Download the Fact Sheet

"OTN eConsult provides easy access to so many different specialists with a turn-around time ranging from a few hours to a few days. It's incredibly easy to use and the specialists' responses are very thorough and helpful. I would absolutely recommend OTN eConsult."

- Kristina Zubrinic, Nurse Practitioner

Resource Available for eConsult Specialists

The HITS eHealth Office has a new resource available for specialists who want to communicate to their primary care network that they are available on eConsult!

Sending this communication to primary care providers can help increase the number of eConsults you receive, reduce unnecessary referrals and build new connections.

Click Image to Download
COVID-19 Advice Available on eConsult

In response to the ongoing pandemic, the Ontario eConsult Centre of Excellence has created 4 COVID-related Managed Specialty Groups.

COVID-19 BASE™ Managed Specialty Group

  • Accessed through the BASE™ managed specialty option and listed under Infectious Disease and Public Health
  • A group of Infectious Disease specialists who can answer both patient-specific and general questions about COVID-19


COVID-19 and Autoimmune Disorders BASE™ Managed Specialty Group

  • Accessed through the BASE™ Managed Specialty option and listed under COVID-19, Public Health and Rheumatology
  • A group of Rheumatology specialists who can answer both patient-specific and general questions about COVID-19 and Autoimmune Disorders.

COVID-19 and Allergy/Immunology BASE™ Managed Specialty Group

  • Accessed through the BASE™ Managed Specialty option and listed under COVID-19 and Allergy & Clinical Immunology.
  • A group of Allergy & Clinical Immunology specialists who can answer both patient-specific and general questions about COVID-19 vaccine allergies

COVID-19 and Pregnancy BASE™ Managed Specialty Group

  • Accessed through the BASE™ managed specialty option and listed under COVID-19, Public Health and Obstetrics.
  • A group of Obstetrics specialists who can answer both patient-specific and general questions about COVID-19 and Pregnancy.


For non-patient specific questions please enter the patient information as follows:

First Name: COVID19
Last Name: COVID19
Date of Birth: 1900-01-01
Select 'OHIP number Not Available'
Contact Us
For more information on anything in this email, or to schedule a follow-up appointment with our team, please contact us at the email listed below.