“He is one of the most brilliant people I know, but is incredibly, incredibly humble around the contributions he has made.”
Those are the words of Christina Krause, the CEO of the BC Patient Safety and Quality Council, talking about Prince George’s Dr. Bill Clifford.
Dr. Clifford has just received a BC Quality Award for “Leadership in Quality” for his revolutionary work in the medical space since the 80s.
First coming to Prince George in 1989, Clifford designed a system called the Medical Office Information System (MOIS) and launched it in 1990.
MOIS quickly spread around the north, and positively impacted primary care physicians, nurses, social workers, medical office assistants, and technicians.
“The magic of this EMR (electronic medical record) is how simple it is to use the program to provide guideline-based care to patients, to run reports on what is needed to ensure patients are receiving the care they need, and to find patients whose care needs more intervention,” says Dr. Paul Murray, retired Northern Health Medical Lead for Primary and Community Care. “The long and the short of it, Bill created MOIS and it’s made my life easier.”
By the early 2000s, MOIS was the best of its kind in Canada, and demand surpassed what Dr. Clifford was able to supply on his own.
So he sold it for $1 to a non-profit he funded, now known as Bright Health.
He was awarded the Order of BC in 2014 for this work.
For his complete bio, click here.
The BC Patient Safety and Quality Council has been around since 2008 with the goal to advance the quality of care – these awards recognize those who have done just that.
Krause said Dr. Clifford’s work has “laid a foundation… to improve the standard of care in the north in particular, but it has spread across the province as well. He is a real leader in this province around information systems.”
Having known Dr. Clifford for nearly 20 years, Krause had nothing but praise to share.
“He has been relentless in this journey, and this belief that people need better information to give better care,” she said.
“His humility has really enabled the success that he has… it would probably be hard to get him to speak to everything he accomplished.”
She was right, Dr. Clifford did not respond to My PG Now’s requests to interview him about his accomplishments and this award.
For more information on the BC Quality Awards, click here.