In this Issue:
- Primary Care Patient/Client Experience Virtual Care Survey
- Responding to COVID-19: Understanding How Primary Care Teams Stepped up to Help Support Their Communities and Patients
- IHP Experience During the Early Phase of COVID-19
- Upcoming Virtual Events
Primary Care Patient/Client Virtual Care Experience Survey
The rapid adoption of virtual care during the pandemic not only addresses the current needs but it will most likely shape the future of primary care delivery, beyond the pandemic.
As a result, the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario (AFHTO) formed a working group with a number of primary care, health system and health research organizations to measure the patient/client experience with virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic. These organizations included: Quality Improvement in Primary Care Council (QI in PC Council), Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV), eHealth Centre of Excellence (eCE), Ontario Health (Quality) (OH(Q)), and Partnering for Quality.
We created the Primary Care Patient/Client Virtual Care Experience Survey to help fill informational gaps to inform future planning and further support the implementation of virtual care in primary care. This survey can also be used for quality improvement purposes to allow providers to look at ways to improve their care delivery.
For online surveys, a template survey for Microsoft Forms has been created that can be duplicated. If you will be using SurveyMonkey, please email Sandeep.gill@afhto.ca and a copy of the survey will be shared with you.
Ocean (CognisantMD) is offering a free platform to patient experience data; however, please refer to this guide to ensure that you have completed all the steps to qualify. For your convenience, eCE has created an Ocean eForm version of the survey, now available to be imported to your Ocean (CognisantMD) site. Instructions on how to import and configure the survey and data extraction can be found here.
We also highly recommend you report back to AFHTO to support AFHTO’s Provincial Initiative. To further support practices in expanding and solidifying virtual care in primary health at a provincial-level, AFHTO will be collecting the practice-level aggregate responses to the survey. Please click here to find more information.
Responding to COVID-19: Understanding How Primary Care Teams Stepped up to Help Support Their Communities and Patients
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve heard countless stories of our teams’ commitment, diligence and initiative to continue providing team-based primary care around the province. We’re here to ensure that your hard work gets noticed – but to do so, we need your help.
AFHTO in collaboration with Dr. Rachelle Ashcroft and Dr. Catherine Donnelly are conducting a research study to capture the efforts of all our members to ensure no story is left untold. This information will help influence and shape how teams will continue to adapt virtual care after the pandemic, as well as to meet patient needs.
Interviews end August 14- don’t miss your chance to participate! Please sign up for a 30-minute interview to share your team’s story.
IHP Experience During the Early Phase of COVID-19
At the beginning of pandemic Dr. Catherine Donnelly and Dr. Rachelle Ashcroft created a survey to capture the interprofessional health provider (IHP) experience as the transition to virtual care began. The objective of the study was to describe the state of IHP practice within primary care teams during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the preliminary findings of the study were that 48% of IHPs felt that teamwork collaboration increased during the pandemic, 18% of IHPs felt that it remained the same whereas 34% felt it decreased.
Most of the IHPs delivered care to patients via phone. Before the pandemic this was the most popular mechanism of virtual care delivery. As the pandemic progressed and teams explored creative ways to outreach to patients, teams started to explore social media. The preliminary findings of this survey are that IHPs are the least confident with patient care delivery via social media compared to other virtual care options and in-person care.
As the pandemic evolves so does the expertise of providers with virtual care. Dr. Catherine Donnelly and Dr. Rachelle Ashcroft will release another survey to capture the IHP experience at multiple time points. Stay tuned for the next survey!
Upcoming Virtual Events
211 Ontario – Connecting Patients to Community Programs and Services Webinar
Thursday August 20, 2020 – 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT
A webinar about how 211 can assist Family Health Teams. 211 has been helping the people of Ontario navigate community, health, and social services for many years. Learn more about 211 Ontario by registering here.
Electronic Asthma Management System (eAMS) – Tool Demonstration Webinar
Tuesday September 15, 2020 – 12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT
The Electronic Asthma Management System (eAMS) is an evidence-based clinical decision support system developed to improve your ability to deliver best care for patients with asthma. Learn more about the tool by registering here.
AFHTO 2020 Conference Tectonic shifts: rebuilding primary care in a new world
Thursday, October 8, 2020 – Friday, October 9, 2020
Before 2020, anyone with experience in Ontario’s healthcare system thought they knew what change meant. Now such changes seem almost a lifetime ago. COVID-19 has shifted our priorities with a focus on how to support our patients and our teams in new ways of delivering care.
Primary care has risen to the challenge, but the ground is still shifting, and the future is uncertain. In short, we need to rebuild primary care for this new world. Registration to open soon. Learn more here.
In Case You Missed It: Check out eBulletin #98 or other back issues here!
Questions? Comments? Contact us at improve@afhto.ca.
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