Your Medical Information with You

Opal is a patient portal designed to empower you with your medical information at the McGill University Health Centre.

Now available:

An Award-Winnning App

Prix d'excellence Ministers Choice Award

Opal is an award-winning patient-empowerment app that helps patients manage their healthcare experience.

Manage

Your hospital visits.

Opal’s calendar lets you see all your upcoming and past appointments in one place.
Using Opal you can check in for your appointments when you arrive at the hospital and receive an alert on your phone when your medical practitioner is ready to see you.
Opal notifications ensure that you are always up to date with your medical information.

Monitor

Your medical information.

Appointments

View your appointment schedule. Check in and receive a notification to be called in for your appointment without waiting in the waiting room.
Lab Results

View your blood test results, see how they change over time and learn what they mean.

Clinical Notes

View your key clinical notes and print or share them with your family members or other medical professionals.
Notifications

Receive notifications when there is new information in your chart and when your treating team sends you a message.

Learn

About your medical condition and treatment.

Opal provides you with educational material tailored to your diagnosis and treatment that is delivered when you need it.

Multimedia

Access booklets, factsheets, and videos sent to you by your treating team.

Integrated

All lab results and documents are tagged with explanatory educational material.

Personal

Your educational material is tailored to your diagnosis and phase of treatment.

Hospital information

Access parking information, maps, and general hospital information.

Engage

In your care.

It is important that you play an active role in your care.
Your treating team may send you official questionnaires about your health status. Please take a few minutes to answer the questions.
You may also record your own symptoms or side effects at any time and share them with your treating team during your next visit. By recording your experiences you can help your treating team better understand how your condition and your treatment are affecting you.

The Opal Health Informatics Group

Opal’s development team is unique! We are a passionate group of patients, clinicians, researchers and students at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre known as the Opal Health Informatics Group.

The O-HIG was formed in 2014 when Prof. Laurie Hendren, who was a professor of Computer Science at McGill University, developed breast cancer and received radiotherapy under the care of Dr. Tarek Hijal at the McGill University Health Centre. At the time, Tarek was collaborating with medical physicist Dr. John Kildea on a number of health informatics projects. Tarek introduced Laurie to John. The three hit it off and decided to work together as equals on computer science projects to improve the experiences and outcomes of cancer patients.
Although the team didn’t know it at the beginning, their collaboration would blossom into Opal, an innovative patient portal app to empower Quebec and Canadian patients and facilitate the collection of patient-reported outcomes.
Opal is special because it was built by the O-HIG using a process of participatory stakeholder co-design. The O-HIG involved all stakeholders in the design and development, including patients, clinicians, and researchers. Their pioneering co-design approach ensured that the end result (i.e. the complete software platform) is patient-centered, acceptable to clinicians, and technically feasible within the healthcare system.
Laurie passed away from her cancer in May 2019 but her legacy lives on in the O-HIG. The research team is now directed by Dr. Kildea and Dr. Hijal is the medical lead

Click here for a message regarding Laurie Hendren who co-founded and co-led of the Opal project.