In this Issue:
- Advance Care Planning
- OurCare & Healthy Debate: Reimagining primary care
- Updated quality standards on schizophrenia care
- Updated Lyme disease clinical guidance document
- Tools for virtual care guidance now available in more languages
- Upcoming Events
Advance Care Planning
National Advance Care Planning Day is on April 16, 2023, and Hospice Palliative Care Ontario has tools and resources to help you prepare.
- Person-Centred Decision-Making Online Learning Portal – developed to assist health service providers with having ACP conversations and Goals of Care discussions with clients.
- Advance Care Planning App – download today
- Resources Sale– Hospice Palliative Care Ontario is currently holding a sale on all orders placed for wallet cards, bookmarks, posters, and post cards. Buy 3 packs of any of these materials and get 2 packs for free (While supplies last)
- Skills Building Workshops: Person-Centred Decision-Making– aims to support clinicians to improve conversation and communication skills while also supporting the administrative staff who assist with clinical practice. The cost to participate is $350 + HST per participant. There is a minimum of 16 participants required to host a workshop, with a maximum of 24 participants. If your organization is interested in hosting this workshop, please email Education@hpco.ca.
- Advance Care Planning Training Program – interactive virtual training workshop series that will guide participants in facilitating community Advance Care Planning presentations to the public. The cost to participate is $412 + HST per participant. There is a minimum of 10 participants required to host a workshop. If your organization is interested in hosting this workshop, please email Education@hpco.ca.
Related ACP Resources
- C3 Planting the Seed – Introducing Advance Care Planning Conversations in “5 Minutes or Less”
- F-5 Integrating Advance Care Planning into Primary Care Teams
- Advance Care Planning Quality Improvement Toolkit– CCO, Ontario Health
OurCare & Healthy Debate: Reimagining primary care
OurCare survey’s results and the recent Ontario Priorities Panel have demonstrated that the public is ready for bold change. Check out the latest blog, Reimagining primary care, published for the special series by Healthy Debate and OurCare.
Previous posts included:
- Team-based care key to alleviating primary-care crisis
- Give me a primary-care provider who understands me.
- Virtual care must be integrated into public system, not driven by profit
- More than 6.5 million adults in Canada lack access to primary care
Updated quality standards on schizophrenia care
Content provided by Ontario Health
The Schizophrenia: Care for Adults in Hospital quality standard (originally published in 2016) and the Schizophrenia: Care in the Community for Adults quality standard (originally published in 2018) were updated in 2023. The care outlined in the quality statements remains unchanged and continues to be supported by the latest clinical practice guidelines.
Family physicians can earn 1.75 and 2.0 Mainpro+® credits for reading the Schizophrenia: Care for Adults in Hospital and Schizophrenia: Care in the Community quality standards, respectively, through the Understanding Quality Standards in Primary Care Program.
The two schizophrenia quality standards will support the work of the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence to build an accessible, high-quality, and connected system of care for people living with schizophrenia and psychosis in Ontario.
Updated Lyme disease clinical guidance document
In collaboration with Public Health Ontario, Ontario Health has now updated the Lyme disease clinical guidance document that was first published in 2018 to ensure the treatment recommendations are supported by the most current evidence. Antibiotic treatment recommendations and guidance on serology testing using a modified two-tier testing algorithm have been updated. As you review the updated document, please consider how to best align your organization’s QI efforts. Please also consider sharing it with those in your network.
Tools for virtual care guidance now available in more languages
As previously mentioned, Ontario Health has worked with a primary care expert panel to develop Guidance for Clinically Appropriate Use of Virtual Care – Primary Care and supporting tools.
These tools are now available for download in an expanded range of languages, including French, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Greek, Gujarati, Pashto, Persian, Slovak, Spanish, Tagalog, and Urdu. You can find these resources on their site (English and French).
They are also still accepting submissions to the Phase I Guidance for Clinically Appropriate Use of Virtual Care for Primary Care’ evaluation survey.
Upcoming Events
QI Innovations: Better Data, Better Decisions, Better Outcomes
April 18, 2023
This year’s free QI Innovations conference is for mental health and addiction providers and system planners who are interested in data driven decision making and quality improvement. Register here.
Eating Disorders: A New Quality Standard for High-Quality Care in Ontario
May 5, 2023, 12:00pm
This session will introduce Ontario Health’s recently released Eating Disorders quality standard and describe how it can drive quality improvement and improve care for Ontarians across the health system. Register here.
In Case You Missed It: Check out eBulletin #127 or other back issues here!
Questions? Comments? Contact us at improve@afhto.ca.