Don’t be left behind! There’s one week left to submit your data for D2D 6.0. Even if you’re one of the 90% of teams who have already participated at least once, it’s worth doing again. Missed the announcement? Check out this page to find out what’s new and interesting. The resources on our updated planning & preparation page will make it easy to get your data ready. And, of course, you can always contact us for help.
- NEW to D2D: Contribute your D2D Data ANONYMOUSLY to research partners at Queen’s University, so they can help us demonstrate the value of teams even more robustly than we have done so far! Simply answer “yes” to the consent question, and we’ll do the rest.
- Some of you have been asking about the Diabetes Care Calculator. We’ve refreshed it to make it a bit more comprehensive – it now provides rates for the individual components, for teams who want to include that data in their submission. Download it here.
Research pays – literally! Congratulations to East End FHT in Timmins, who won a $50 Visa gift card for participating in the Measurement of Organizational Readiness for Patient Engagement (MORE) survey conducted by our research partners at St. Michael’s Hospital. AFHTO members were well-represented; of the 149 participating teams from across Ontario, at least 62 were FHTs and at least 10 were NPLCs. Results will be shared in an upcoming webinar; stay tuned for details! Freshen up your patient experience survey! Consider switching it up with the Patient Perceptions of Patient-Centredness (PPPC) questionnaire, a validated tool that looks at what patient-centredness means… to patients. Don’t let the long name scare you – it’s just 14 breezy questions about how well patients think their providers listen to them, understand them, and include them in decision-making. In addition to getting a break from the same-old, same-old, you’ll gain new insights and help us understand better how well D2D is measuring quality according to what matters to patients. Contact laura.belsito@afhto.ca for more information or a copy of the survey. After a summer of consultation, AFHTO is ready to take measurement to the next level. We’re going to keep measuring – it’s our strong suit! — but we will measure better to get better. We’ll use measurement to show value and achieve even better outcomes. Here’s how:
- Members say that timely and appropriate follow-up after hospitalization is their #1 priority for demonstrating the value of team-based primary care. This is not new. AFHTO members have been into this since D2D 1.0. However, members still have trouble getting information about discharges, getting everyone to agree on exactly what “follow-up” is, and tracking it in their EMRs. That has made it hard to make progress across the membership. With this summer’s recent reminder of how important follow-up is to members, AFHTO staff are ramping up efforts to address these challenges.
- It’s not just about follow-up. Other things matter too. Starting in September 2019, you’ll be able to share your work on local improvement activities via D2D 7.0. In the proposed “local improvement” section, you’ll report on indicators of improvement, not performance, as is the case for most of D2D right now. You will also have space to tell your peers what you’re working to improve, and how.
- The nature of teamwork will also come into sharper focus in D2D 7.0. Members have long wanted D2D to include measures of the value of the entire team. Members will soon have a chance to compare themselves with their peers on measures of teamwork and change ideas to become even higher-performing teams.
With follow-up in mind, the teams of the NE LHIN are coming together for a workshop on all things follow-up in Sudbury on November 27th. The workshop will include external partners such as OntarioMD, the Northeast Ontario [hospital] Network (NEON) and the Patient-Oriented Discharge Summaries (PODS) project. It is intended to help teams make concrete progress in three challenging aspects of follow-up: getting hospital information, tracking follow-up in EMRs and actually doing the follow-up in a patient-centered way. If you’re in the north, please come. If you’re not, stay tuned for lessons learned! More help for members: AFHTO welcomes two new staff members to the QIDS program: Jenny Cockram, who worked with us in 2015 on the Patients Canada survey and on videos about QIDS Specialists and the value of D2D, and Sine MacKinnon, a journalist with a long history in healthcare. Thanks in advance for your help, Jenny and Sine! In Case You Missed It: Check out eBulletin #78 or other back issues here!
D2D 6.0 Timeline