Provincial Clinical Lead, Central Intake (CI), Patients before Paperwork

Position summary

Ontario Health is seeking expressions of interest from practicing Specialist Physician leaders in Ontario with extensive experience in the digital health and health system change management for the position of Provincial Clinical Lead, Central Intake (CI), Patients before Paperwork.

In this role, the Provincial Clinical Lead, CI will work across multiple clinical pathways (e.g., Orthopaedics, Diagnostic Imaging, Cataracts, etc.) to ensure consistent governance, coordinated operations, and clinical best practices. The Clinical Lead will provide strategic oversight and support alignment with provincial principles as per recommendations from the Provincial CI Expert Panel. The Provincial Clinical Lead will work with other clinicians, administrators and other health system leaders to support the establishment and support of CI hubs in every Region, and help develop and refine standardized operational and technical guidance for lead CI hub organizations. This role is critical to ensuring provincial consistency while respecting regional variation and promoting high-quality, equitable patient care.

Patients Before Paperwork (Pb4P) is a five-year joint initiative of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ontario Health (OH) aimed at modernizing Ontario’s health care system through the strategic implementation of digital health tools. Pb4P addresses long-standing inefficiencies in care delivery by replacing paper- and fax-based workflows with secure, integrated digital solutions – that will start with focussing on coordinating and optimizing the referral experience – and is where this role is aligned. The initiative is grounded in the quintuple aim: improving patient experience, enhancing population health, advancing health equity, improving provider experience, and delivering better value.

Within this Pb4P vision, CI models play a critical role in ensuring patients are referred to the right care, by the right provider, at the right time. CI programs aim to streamline and standardize access to specialist and diagnostic services by creating single-entry referral hubs enabled by technology, thereby reducing wait times, and supporting more equitable access across regions. By improving coordination across referring providers and specialists, CI systems will help lessen the burden of healthcare providers from the complexity of the current referral process. It will provide referral process information and wait time visibility to help patients and providers with care management and planning. Patients will have more timely, equitable access to specialty services ensuring they receive the right care, at the right place, at the right time based on their preferences.

Questions about the role may be submitted by email no later than June 16, 2025.

A consolidated list of all questions and answers will be available to any party, by request, by June 20, 2025.

Interested parties should forward their expression of interest and curriculum vitae, electronically, with the subject line as “Application for P4bP CI Lead - [Your Name]” no later than 5:00 P.M. on June 26, 2025.

To send a question, receive a copy of the consolidated list of questions and answers, or to submit your expression of interest, please contact Sourcing@ontariohealth.ca.

Accountabilities

The key responsibilities of this role are:

• Serve as the Provincial Clinical Lead and Champion for CI implementation in Ontario helping to articulate and promote the value proposition for providers, patients and the Ontario health system.
• Provide clinical leadership and guidance across all CI leads and regional hub organizations in Ontario.
• Serve as Lead/Co-Chair of key committees to implement CI workflows aligned with program principles, facilitating collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, knowledge exchange, and decision-making across multiple clinical pathways.
• Guide and support regional CI leads to ensure effective implementation of CI workflows, while ensuring appropriate governance and alignment with lead and sub-hub organizations.
• Act as a skilled negotiator to build consensus with diverse health sector partners, on provincial and regional standards for central intake, including referral and intake protocols, based on clinical evidence and operational feasibility.
• Provide a strong, reflective clinical perspective to ensure that CI workflows remain grounded in the realities of front-line practice and provider experience.
• Support the development of technical guidance, evaluation metrics, and implementation tools to enhance quality, equity, and performance.
• Promote a culture of continuous quality improvement, person-centered care, and clinical innovation.
• Provide strategic clinical guidance to ensure clinical priorities are aligned with product rollouts. This will include working with a variety of OH teams including the digital, clinical support, change management, communications, and user experience teams, using a respectful and collaborative approach to inform the design of workflows and support effective implementation.
• Advise on the accessibility and appropriateness of digital tools for different communities and help identify where efforts should be targeted to ensure equitable reach and adoption, including establishing clinical targets and priorities.

Qualifications

• A practicing Specialist in good standing with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), with a minimum of 5 years clinical experience. A Radiologist or Orthopedic Surgeon preferred, but not required.
• Proven leadership in clinical governance, system design, protocols for leading health system transformation at the regional or provincial level.
• Strong professional aptitude for systems thinking, ability to analyze information and to make sound decisions, comfortable reviewing and interpreting data. A true health systems thinker.
• Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills with a demonstrated ability to build consensus, and manage complex multi-stakeholder relationships. Strong professional presence and ability to present to large and small audiences in a concise, articulate and dynamic fashion.
• A clear commitment to evidence-based medicine, health equity, and person-centred care. Enthusiasm for and commitment to quality improvement in health care at the system level.
• Strong understanding of knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) strategies for implementation with specialists and primary care providers.
• Practical experience in implementation/development of CI system at institutional, subregional, regional level in diagnostic imaging, orthopaedics, low back pain or cataracts.
• Strong understanding of Ontario's health care environment, particularly with a systems focus on the issues facing coordinating and optimizing referrals, and experience in working with key health system partners such as the Ontario Medical Association, Ministry of Health, etc.
• Expert knowledge and currency with medical literature and evidence-based guidelines, as it pertains to central intake/ central waitlist management and referrals.
• Good knowledge and understanding of health information systems and electronic medical records with experience in the use of health informatics and health system performance measurement and management to promote change

How to apply

Interested parties should forward their expression of interest and curriculum vitae, electronically, with the subject line as “Application for PB4P CI Lead - [Your Name]” no later than 5:00 P.M. on June 26, 2025 to Sourcing@ontariohealth.ca

More About Ontario Health

Ontario Health is an agency created by the Government of Ontario with a mandate to connect and coordinate Ontario’s health care system in ways that have not been done before, to help ensure that Ontarians receive the best possible care.

Ontario Health oversees health care delivery across the province, which includes ensuring front-line providers and other health professionals have the tools and information they need to deliver the best possible care within their communities. This also means simplifying the current system and connecting and coordinating its many complex parts in new and innovative ways. This involves keeping a close eye on how the health system is performing and providing evidence-based standards and improvements to address any gaps.

Ontario Health helps to support significant and important transformation in Ontario’s health system, working to ease the transition between points of care for Ontarians and helping to ensure they have access to the care they need. Ontario Health is adapting world-renowned practices from areas such as cancer care and renal care to other parts of the system, including mental health and addictons.

Through integration, coordination, connection, and clinical excellence, Ontario Health is working to reduce strain on the system which will enable investment of more resources on the care Ontarians need, and, most importantly, improve health outcomes and overall wellness for all.

As an operational service agency of the Government of Ontario, Ontario Health is accountable for conducting a fair and transparent process, providing equal treatment to all qualified parties, in selecting a candidate for the above mentioned role.