OPRC databases and data holdings
OPRC is a collaborative project of four organizations, the Ontario Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Council of Ontario Faculties of Medicine and the Ontario Medical Association. OPRC is governed by these organizations, funded by the Ministry of Health, and operated at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario.
Data Sharing Agreements exist for data used to create OPRC’s databases and are routinely updated to meet individual requirements. Among these are agreements with the Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the Ontario Medical Association, ICES, Scott’s Medical Database and the Council of Ontario Faculties of Medicine.
Yearly Physicians in Ontario (PIO) and Postgraduate Medical Trainees in Ontario (PMTIO) reports are publicly available on our website. Aggregate reports may be requested by interested parties when appropriate. OPRC does not disclose information on individual physicians or medical trainees.
This registry consists of all active physicians in Ontario. The Physicians in Ontario (PIO) Annual Report is derived from the registry and has been produced since 1992. Additionally, these data are used by OPRC to produce other reports and analyses of the Ontario physician workforce.
Compiled by OPRC with the collaboration of Ontario’s hospitals, the Physician Hospital Appointments Listing (PHAL) is one of the sources used to validate inclusion and exclusion of physicians in the Active Physician Registry. PHAL data has been collected by OPRC since 2003 when OPRC was approached by the Ministry of Health to assume this project on their behalf. OPRC collects information on Physician Hospital Appointments and appends this information to the annual report provided to the Ministry.
This database contains the results of brief telephone interviews with Ontario physicians’ offices to confirm their status, focus, and location of practice. Generally, interviews are completed every 3 to 5 years. Interviews are completed on a yearly basis in the case of discrepant data, potential retirees, newly practicing physicians, and physicians returning from leave. These data are an essential source for the Active Physician Registry and has been a function of OPRC since its inception.
This database compliments the Active Physician Registry and has been produced since 1993. Registration data for postgraduate medical trainees at each of the Ontario medical schools is compiled into a provincial resource. The database is used to prepare the Postgraduate Medical Trainees in Ontario (PMTIO) Annual Report. OPRC also acts on behalf of Ontario’s medical schools to facilitate matching using the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) and data submission to the Canadian Post-M.D. Education Registry (CAPER).
Medical Trainee Days (MTD) data has been collected by OPRC since 2014 when responsibility for collecting these data was moved from the Ministry of Health operations to the medical schools. On their behalf, OPRC concatenates and validates data on the clinical rotations of undergraduate medical students and postgraduate medical trainees. This data is provided by Ontario hospitals through the Ontario medical schools and is used by the Ministry of Health in the formula for the calculation of funding for Ontario hospitals.