Overview
Located in midtown Toronto, Yonge Davisville Health Clinic is a three-physician family practice that’s part of the Otter Creek Family Health Organization. Led by Drs. Stables, Phillips, and Liu, the clinic provides comprehensive primary care and After Hours Clinics services to a broad range of patients in a busy urban location.
Challenges
Like many family practices emerging from the pandemic, Yonge Davisville faced significant challenges around administrative staff retention. With increased competition for a dwindling number of medical office assistants (MOAs), Dr. Stables described a “revolving door” of staff coming in and out of the practice, which made maintaining daily operations exceedingly difficult.
With no end to workforce shortages in sight, the team started to look at how other clinics were keeping up with admin tasks.
Solution
It was clear that some degree of tech-enabled automation was the solution. However, Yonge Davisville’s early experiences with EMR-based add-ons failed to deliver expected results. “Then we tried Cortico,” said Dr. Stables, “and everything changed.”
What started as a simple online booking trial quickly evolved into a more comprehensive digital transformation. This shift to a digital-first care experience solved the clinic’s immediate staffing challenges and reduced daily stress for the physicians and MOA, while also improving the care experience for patients.
Impact
When asked what features her team has got the most out of, Dr. Stables replied, “All of them, and I mean that!”
Below are examples of the impact Cortico has had on daily operations at Yonge Davisville.
Achieved near-complete booking automation. Patients now independently schedule appointments via Yonge Davisville’s website, with real-time availability syncing directly to the EMR. Cortico’s patient scheduling software handles everything from routine follow-ups to same-day appointments, virtual visits, and uninsured service bookings—all without staff intervention.
“Patients really like online booking,” Dr. Stables explained. The clinic also successfully received provincial funding for online scheduling, which helped to offset implementation costs.
Streamlined uninsured payment collection. Using Cortico’s integrated payment automation, the clinic collects fees for uninsured services without the awkward conversations and manual follow-up often involved with these tasks. Patients simply pay online during booking or when requesting documents.
“The integrated online payments are very convenient for both staff and patients,” states Dr. Stables.
Transformed physician-patient communication. Through secure messaging integrated with the EMR, physicians can now send lab results, prescription notifications, and after-care instructions directly to patients. No more multi-step workflows involving MOAs forwarding information and then playing phone tag.
“Secure messaging has been a huge change for me,” reports Dr. Stables. “Before Cortico, if I needed to send a lab result to a patient, I’d have to route it through our MOAs, who would forward the message, and then we’d wait for a callback. Now, I send the result straight to the patient and it’s all done.”
Reduced administrative burden measurably. The clinic’s MOA, Rosemary, experiences noticeably lower stress levels. With fewer scheduling calls and requests from doctors, she now focuses on higher-value work, such as supporting vulnerable patients and improving clinic operations.
Seamless mass communication. Yonge Davisville has used the mass email feature in Cortico several times to communicate important updates to their entire patient roster. In the past, practice updates were communicated by posting on the website (unreliable) or manual methods (time-consuming).
Looking Forward
Yonge Davisville Health Clinic demonstrates how the right technology can help smaller practices create more efficient, sustainable ways of working that benefit clinicians, MOAs, and patients.
With scheduling, payments, and patient messaging now largely automated, the team has broken the cycle of constantly searching for more administrative staff to keep basic operations running. As a result, they can focus more on patient care while achieving a healthier and more rewarding work-life balance.
