QI in Action eBulletin #95: Made-In Ontario High Impact Actions in Primary Care

In this issue

• Primary Care Virtual Community
• High Impact Action Items
• Local Change Ideas
• Upcoming Webinars

Primary Care Virtual Community:

The primary care virtual community is Ontario’s novel collaborative designed to unleash the power of primary care in health system change. As a community, they have co-defined a list of High Impact Actions that are felt to spark meaningful improvements in primary care, building on lessons learned from the UK’s own transformation efforts. The community has also shared insight on the actions they feel are within their control, in addition to where support is needed. As a community they continue to work collaboratively to refine the list of High Impact Action Items for Ontario. Here is the latest list of 10:

High Impact Action Items:

1. Navigate & Coordinate

• Promote patient navigator role that can enable easier patient/caregiver access to resources including those that go beyond health care resources. This could include linking home care coordination to primary care.

2. Integrate EMRs

• Either single or intra-operable EMR/EHR systems that can both push and pull required information. Integration of EMRs can enhance quality of care provided and practice efficiency by promoting easier and better communication.

3. Access to Mental Health and Addictions

• Provide mental health and addictions supports in the community, embedding these supports in primary care.

4. Organizing Primary Care

• Come together at the local level to organize primary care and move towards more team-based care for more Ontarians, opening up the FHO model for primary care delivery.

5. Practice Facilitation & Change Management

• Provide dedicated resources to enable peer -to -peer coaching and uptake by providers. A QI-enabled, evidence-driven health care system, in turn, enables best practices.

6. Build the Extended Team

• Identify and provide support to the extended team that wraps around the patient/ family/caregivers and provide supports to enable the team to be high performing.

7. Streamline & Reduce Administrative Burden

• Reduce bureaucracy and administrative burden.

8. Recognize and Support Primary Care Continuity

• Promote the patient/caregiver and provider relationship, ensuring that the care is provided according to the principles of comprehensiveness and continuity.

9. Build Connections to Address the Social Determinants of Health

• Recognize the social determinants of health as factors that influence health and well being outside of access to healthcare services, adopting practices like social prescribing.

10. Patients as Partners

• Empower patients to take greater control and ownership over their health.

Local Change Ideas:

The Primary Care Virtual Community has given communities the opportunity to identify what’s meaningful to them. What are their pain points, headaches or areas that can be improved? And more importantly what changes can be made at the local level to support providers, their clinical practices and the delivery of patient care. Building on the change ideas identified in the primary care high impact actions for Ontario, this document highlights local challenges and solutions to improve clinical practices and care delivery in your own communities. This document is only the beginning of creating a repository of change ideas. Please complete this survey to provide local change ideas within your community!

The February 13th and the November 21st Virtual Community focused on Organizing Primary Care – the community learned from a number of primary care leaders about how they are mobilizing the primary care community to self-organize and identify what their needs are. We’re pleased to share their lessons and advice with the release of Primary Care Physicians: Working Together for Change primer which highlights strategies that can be employed for organizing primary care at the local level.

Resources:

• Provincial QIP Change Ideas
• Mental Health and Addiction Initiatives
• Primary Care: Local Change Ideas
• Primary Care Physicians: Working Together for Change primer
• Sign up for the Primary Care Virtual Community here
• Sign up to access recordings of previous Primary Care Virtual Community sessions, hosted by the Ontario College of Family Physicians (free access to all).

Upcoming Webinars:

• Improving cancer screening rates in your practice and reducing related disparities – Feb 20, 2020 – Sign up here

In Case You Missed It: Check out eBulletin #94 or other back issues here!
Questions? Comments? Contact us at improve@afhto.ca.