OpenEvidence and the Medical Identification Number for Canada Corporation (MINC#NIMC) announced a partnership on September 11, 2026, under which Canadian physicians can verify their identity with their MINC number to maintain free access to OpenEvidence’s medical AI platform.
The announcement, datelined Miami, FL and Ottawa, ON, said the partnership is intended to streamline physician verification for Canada and support continued free access for verified Canadian clinicians.
Verification Terms and Mechanics
Under the integration, Canadian physicians can be verified by entering their MINC at registration or by linking it to an existing account, an arrangement the organizations said ensures continued no-cost access while maintaining verification and privacy controls. The MINC is the identifier already held by more than 95% of physicians in Canada, according to the announcement, which presents the partnership as reducing friction at the moment of sign-up.
MINC#NIMC partnered with OpenEvidence in recognition of the platform’s positive impact on clinical practice and patient care, the announcement said, characterizing the collaboration as a significant milestone for both organizations.
Executive Statements
“I grew up in Toronto, so keeping OpenEvidence free for Canadian physicians is personal for me,” said Daniel Nadler, Founder and CEO of OpenEvidence. Nadler said the platform has handled more than 500 million AI-powered clinical consultations from verified healthcare professionals globally. He described MINC as the common identifier across Canadian medicine and said connecting it to OpenEvidence makes verification faster.
Michael Epp, Executive Director of MINC#NIMC, said his organization is committed to supporting initiatives that advance evidence-based healthcare delivery in Canada. “By using MINC’s trusted physician identification infrastructure, we can help facilitate access to evidence-based medical information that supports better patient outcomes across Canada,” Epp said.
The MINC Identifier System
MINC#NIMC is a federally-incorporated not-for-profit founded and supported by the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada and the Medical Council of Canada. According to Medical Council of Canada documentation of the system, the two bodies incorporated the corporation for the sole purpose of administering MINC.
A MINC is issued to individuals who consent in writing at their initial, even temporary, entry to any part of the Canadian medical education or practice systems, including undergraduate students, postgraduate trainees, applicants to MCC examinations, and physicians of any registration status. Once assigned, a MINC remains unchanged throughout a medical career, is never reused even after the individual’s death, and stays with individuals who leave Canada and return, move between jurisdictions, or change registration status.
No information is encoded in a MINC beyond a country code, CA for Canada, and a profession code, MD for Medicine, and the number implies no special privilege, rights, or status. With an individual’s consent, the Medical Council of Canada or a provincial or territorial medical regulatory authority submits what the system calls Core Information, covering names, gender, date of birth, country of birth, and year and university of graduation, which MINC#NIMC uses to generate or confirm a MINC.
Not-for-profit and public sector organizations involved in the education, certification, licensure, or professional practice of physicians in Canada may apply for a license to use the MINC system, and licensees must comply with MINC#NIMC’s Privacy Code and applicable privacy legislation. The Medical Council of Canada and the twelve Canadian medical regulatory authorities hold controlled access to both MINCs and Core Information, while Licensed Users receive only the MINCs of their own members.
The corporation describes MINC on its own site as a tool for organizations that maintain physician databases. The announcement’s description of MINC#NIMC adds that the MINC program is endorsed by all Canadian medical regulatory authorities as a primary means of identifying the individuals they register, and that the system adheres to the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information.
OpenEvidence Platform and Stated Benefits
OpenEvidence describes itself as a medical information platform built for clinicians, providing point-of-care answers grounded in peer-reviewed medical literature with references clinicians can review and verify. The company says the platform is already used by more than 50% of physicians in Canada and trusted by more than one million physicians worldwide, and it cites content partnerships with The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Cochrane, and Nature.
The listed benefits for Canadian clinicians include continued no-cost access through MINC verification, streamlined verification through MINC’s lifetime identifier system, instant access to synthesized medical knowledge from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals, the FDA, and leading medical organizations, rapid cited answers to clinical questions, and help staying current with expanding medical knowledge. OpenEvidence is free for all verified U.S. clinicians, and the company calls itself the most popular AI for doctors in the United States, citing independent studies it says find that more American physicians use OpenEvidence than all other AI platforms combined.