Opal Health Informatics Group l #OHIG

What Opal Health Informatics Group l #OHIG does

Opal Health Informatics Group (OHIG) is a non-commercial research group based at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, founded in 2014 by Prof. Laurie Hendren (computer science), Dr. Tarek Hijal (radiation oncology), and Dr. John Kildea (medical physics) after Prof. Hendren experienced firsthand the lack of patient access to medical information during cancer treatment. The group develops and operates "Opal," a cloud-based patient portal delivered through native iOS and Android applications that integrates with hospital information systems at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Cedars Cancer Centre. The platform is organized around four functional areas: managing appointments, monitoring medical records/lab results/clinical notes, providing personalized educational content, and collecting patient-reported outcomes through questionnaires and symptom tracking, with push notifications alerting patients to new information or physician readiness.

The technology is built around a participatory co-design methodology involving patients, clinicians, and researchers, and is differentiated by its "patient-in-the-loop" data model that gives patients direct access to their medical records and enables them to contribute structured outcomes back to their care teams. Notable technical components include hospital information system integration, real-time notifications, multimedia educational content delivery, and a multilingual interface (French and English). The group operates with approximately 11 employees across DevSecOps, software architecture, full-stack development, Scrum, and administrative functions.

The business model is explicitly non-commercial. OHIG is funded solely by research grants and donations from a diversified mix of sources including pharmaceutical companies (Roche Canada, Pfizer Canada, Amgen), Canadian research councils (NSERC, Mitacs), Quebec health technology and cancer research funds (Medteq, Oncopole), the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, hospital foundations (MUHC, MGH, Children's Foundation), and individual donors. There is no product pricing, no paying customers, and no venture or private equity investment. Distribution occurs through consumer app stores (iOS/Android) and, going forward, through an open-source software release announced in 2024 intended to enable global adoption by other healthcare institutions.

Name

Opal Health Informatics Group l #OHIG

Legal name

Opal Health Informatics Group

Website

https://opalmedapps.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Opal Health Informatics Group is a non-commercial McGill University research group that develops and operates the Opal patient portal — a mobile application giving hospital patients access to their medical records, appointments, and personalized educational content — deployed at the MUHC and Cedars Cancer Centre in Quebec and transitioning to open source for global use.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Healthcare Patient Portal Software

NAICS

Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Health Services (8000)

akta.pro primary industry

Chronic Care & Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Platforms (HLALABAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Oncology Remote Symptom Monitoring & Care Navigation (HLALAFAD), eCOA/ePRO/eDiary & Patient-Facing Data Collection (HLACAOAB)

Keywords

• Patient portal software
• Health informatics platform
• Patient engagement tools
• Clinical research software
• Healthcare mobile applications

Headquarters

HQ city

Montreal

HQ country

Canada

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. Research Grants and Donations: Opal is developed and administered non-commercially by the Opal Health Informatics Group, a research group at McGill University. The platform is funded solely by research grants and generous donations.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Opal is a cloud-based patient portal mobile application that gives hospital patients direct access to their medical information including test results, clinical notes, and appointment management features. The platform enables appointment scheduling and check-in, provides personalized educational content tailored to the patient's diagnosis and treatment phase, and collects patient-reported outcomes through health questionnaires and symptom tracking. Developed through participatory co-design involving patients, clinicians, and researchers at McGill University, the platform is being released as open source software for global deployment.

Product overview

Opal Health Informatics Group offers a single unified patient portal product called Opal. The platform is structured around four core functional areas: Manage (appointment scheduling and check-in), Monitor (medical records, lab results, clinical notes), Learn (personalized educational materials), and Participate (health questionnaires and symptom tracking). The application is available as a mobile app for iOS and Android, with the platform being developed as a research project at McGill University and planned for future open-source release.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Opal Patient Portal A patient portal application providing hospital patients with access to their medical information, appointment management and check-in, test results and clinical notes, personalized educational content, and patient-reported outcome questionnaires. Available on iOS and Android, integrated with hospital information systems, and used by healthcare providers and patients at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Cedars Cancer Centre.

Quantifiable outcome

• Empowered patients with faster access to medical information
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• McGill UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic institution and research host for the Opal Health Informatics Group; provides research infrastructure, faculty, and student involvement
• McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrimary clinical implementation site for Opal patient portal; provides hospital integration and patient access
• Cedars Cancer CentrecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerInitial pilot deployment site for Opal in oncology; early adopter of patient portal technology
• MUHC Research InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch institute affiliated with MUHC supporting Opal's research and development activities

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Vivify Health (Optum): Vivify Health, part of Optum, provides remote patient monitoring and patient engagement with mobile apps and PROs, comparable to Opal's PRO and notification capabilities but focused on chronic-condition RPM at enterprise scale.
• Veradigm FollowMyHealth: FollowMyHealth is a patient portal and personal health record platform from Veradigm (formerly Allscripts) that aggregates records across systems and supports messaging, results, and appointment features directly comparable to Opal.
• athenahealth Patient Portal: athenahealth's patient portal provides appointment booking, messaging, results review, and bill pay for ambulatory practices and small hospitals, overlapping Opal's appointment and record-access features while serving a broader ambulatory footprint.
• Meditech Patient Portal: Meditech offers a mobile patient portal tied to its EHR, providing appointment scheduling, results review, and patient engagement features similar to Opal, but embedded in a full hospital information system rather than a research-grade, co-designed platform.
• Epic Systems (MyChart): Epic's MyChart is the dominant hospital-integrated patient portal in North America, offering appointment management, test results, messaging, and notifications — directly overlapping Opal's core feature set, but bundled with Epic's full EHR rather than a specialized, co-designed platform.
• Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) Patient Portal: Oracle Health's patient portal provides hospital-integrated access to records, appointments, and messaging across Cerner EHR installations, comparable in functional scope to Opal but as part of a much broader EHR portfolio serving large health systems.
• Wolters Kluwer Emmi: Wolters Kluwer's Emmi Solutions offers patient engagement, multimedia education, and shared decision-making tools to hospitals and payers, comparable to Opal's personalized education and patient-empowerment features within a much larger clinical content portfolio.

Emerging players

• SeamlessMD: SeamlessMD delivers digital care journeys with patient-reported outcomes, education, and reminders for surgery and chronic care — directly comparable to Opal's PRO/education/notification stack, but commercially focused on perioperative pathways rather than oncology-first ambulatory use.
• GetWell Network: GetWell Network delivers interactive patient engagement, education, and care plan tools across the inpatient and ambulatory continuum, overlapping Opal's personalized education and PRO functions while operating commercially at health-system scale.
• Force Therapeutics: Force Therapeutics provides digital care journeys with PROs, education, and remote monitoring for musculoskeletal and surgical patients, mirroring Opal's patient-engagement architecture but specializing in orthopedic and post-acute pathways.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/opalmedapps
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/ohig

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Opal Health Informatics Group l #OHIG