Community Initiatives Data Entry Manual

Community Initiatives are a fundamental part of how Alliance members foster resilient, healthy communities and improve health and wellbeing at the population level. CIs achieve collective social, environmental, and/or policy change that benefits whole communities. They are often community-led and are always delivered in partnership with community members and organizations.

Although they are essential, CIs are often misunderstood or overlooked by policymakers and funders. Measuring outcomes for all types of services provided, including CIs, is essential for demonstrating the value of CHCs, but it needs to be done regularly and consistently. The Alliance is committed to helping our members collect and share information about their CIs in order to facilitate spread, scale, continuous improvement, and advocacy.

# A New Tool to Record Community Initiative Data

CIRT was created in 2012 for our members to record and track their Community Initiatives and was used by our sector until 2025. However, in her 2017 report, Ontario’s Auditor General called out a lack of data to support the value of CIs, because CHCs were not consistently using CIRT.

A subsequent evaluation of CIRT led by a committee of Alliance members identified several areas of concern that would need to be addressed before it could support a learning health system. The committee recommended creating a new, streamlined tool that would reduce the reporting burden and generate useable data. In 2021, the EPIC LHS Steering Committee, the Information Management Committee, and the Executive Leaders’ Network endorsed transitioning the sector to a new CI reporting solution within the PS Suite EMR.

# Community Initiatives Data Entry Manual

To help our members implement the new, EMR-based CI Tool, the Alliance produced this Data Entry Manual, which provides:

• Additional information about Community Initiatives and how they are distinct from other activities such as Personal Development groups.
• Detailed instructions on how to create and complete custom forms in PS Suite to record Community Initiatives (CIs) and CI Activities

The manual is available in both English and French. 

A launch webinar to support the tools was held on September 17, 2025. You can find the recording and slide deck here.