This article addresses frequently asked questions related to the LINK feature available in OSCAR PRO.
OSCAR Pro Link is a data sharing module enabling seamless medical data exchange between multiple, independent OSCAR Pro systems. For more information please see our User Guide:
https://oscarsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/32887224085524-Link-User-Guide
Note: A very important concept for LINK is understanding the following terminology
| Primary Clinic | The clinic where the patient's main record is stored and their primary physician works. |
| Primary Physician | The main physician responsible (MRP) for the patient's care at the primary clinic. |
| Covering Clinic | A non-primary clinic the patient visits, e.g., for after-hours care. |
| Covering Practitioner | The practitioner seeing the patient at a covering clinic. |
LINK is a great feature for Primary Care clinics and Family Health Organizations to maintain and access patient data across the FHO network.
Commonly used for after-hours visits, LINK enables health professionals serving patients across multiple clinics in the FHO group to access patient records while working at a clinic other than the patient’s “home” clinic.
The current rate for LINK is $19 per month, per provider.
Please reach out to your OSCAR PRO sales representative or submit an email to help@oscarprodesk.ca to get started.
Both LINK and Multi-Site a great options for FHO groups to maintain and share patient data; however, LINK provides the ability for each clinic/site to operate independently and manage their own OSCAR PRO instance and control what patients can be linked.
As part of your FHO group's onboarding procedure collecting expressed consent is great practice so patients understand that their information may be accessed across multiple sites and by multiple health care professionals but is not mandatory.
Organizations use implied consent which allow other health care professionals in the clinic/network to access patient data at other locations. The concept of 'Circle of Care' permits healthcare practitioners involved in the treatment of a patient to share inormation and use information amongst each other.
However, a patient does have the right to stop the sharing of information, even amongst the members in the circle of care. Both the primary and covering clinics have the option of 'unlinking' a patient record to stop data sharing. Please see this section as part of our user guide: