Theme Description: Primary care providers collect and share patient information to help patients move safely and efficiently through the health care system. Presentations in this stream will share experiences to increase our collective capacity for:
- collecting more consistent data AND using the data we already have more safely and effectively (even if it isn’t consistent);
- making personal health records available to patients;
- knowing when and what personal patient information could and should be shared between providers; and
- getting the most out of existing technology, even while working to make it better.
A6-a Utilizing EMRs to Support Cancer Screening Primary care providers (PCPs) play a crucial role in the journey of a cancer patient, both in ensuring that patients get screened for cancer and navigating them through the healthcare system should they require care. The focus of this presentation will be on providing PCPs with information on tools and resources to support cancer screening through the use of current functionality in their EMRs. A6-b Transitioning between EMR Systems The NYFHT Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) Committee formed an EMR Task Force to review the FHT’s goals in moving toward a ‘one EMR and one server’ system. The EMR Task Force began by creating a comprehensive needs/readiness survey to understand current and future EMR requirements, which included readiness to change. Based on findings of the comprehensive needs assessment, the EMR taskforce developed recommendations to support physicians in their vendor procurement process. This process is still ongoing at this time. B6 Using Run Charts to Evaluate Quality Improvement Using run charts to analyze data over time simplifies the analysis of improvements made to processes or systems. They allow teams to easily identify if the quality improvement initiatives are obtaining the desired results. Once improvement has been achieved, run charts allow teams to monitor if the improvement is being sustained. This presentation will provide attendees with an example of how a Family Health Team has modified the reporting format of their indicators by replacing a colour-coded data table with run charts. C6 Mining for data gold: how to recycle imperfect EMR data into useful information EMR data are problematic. Quality can be poor and free text/unstandardized data are often difficult to query. However, many FHTs have already been able to derive significant value from currently existing data. This can involve activities such as querying data in EMRs (“front end data”), supplementing EMR data with external information (for example, the provincial Screening Activity Report or SAR) or participating in projects such as CPCSSN where cleaned/standardized data are returned to FHTs or clusters of FHTs (“back end data” for FHT data warehousing). As an example, we are using data on breast cancer received from the provincial SAR to update and standardize both personal and family history of breast cancer. This will allow us to more accurately categorize patients and refer them for high risk breast cancer screening in the future. D6 Optimizing Quality of EMR Data to Improve Care: Leading the Human Side of Change The difficult task of persuading individuals and groups to change their behaviour has been addressed by many existing change management strategies in the literature. It has been estimated that 70% of change initiatives fail mainly because change plans do not consider human behaviours. The aim of this presentation is to describe change management strategies widely used in healthcare industry that will improve EMR data quality in your healthcare facility. D6-b Primary care performance measurement — why bother? Primary care providers are facing an ever- increasing number of options and obligations related to performance reporting. This session outlines a measurement approach that can help focus attention on what really matters to primary care providers: the relationship with our patients and our ability to deliver the care that they value. It will show how D2D and the Starfield model consider disease-specific outcomes (e.g. “What’s your A1C?”) in the context of the relationship between the patient and provider, as distinct from other measurement models. E6 Using Hospital Data: Doing Analyses and Building Warehouses 1. Using Hospital Emergency Department Data for Quality Improvement in Family Health Teams The Quality Improvement Decision Support Specialist (QIDSS) for Upper Canada FHT, Athens District FHT, Community & Primary Health Care – Community FHT, and Prescott FHT receives hospital data on a monthly basis from Brockville General Hospital (BGH) and Perth & Smiths Falls District Hospital (PSFDH). During the presentation, the QIDSS will outline how data is received from hospitals, the difference analyses that can be performed on the above data, and how this is used to promote quality improvement in FHTs. 2. Analyzing health data across care systems: The NYFHT – NYGH Joint Data Warehouse Patients access care in multiple settings, including hospital and primary care; this is especially common for complex patients. Despite this, data about care are usually contained in electronic silos. Joining and combining health data across systems in order to more fully analyze care is challenging. We generated the first database containing joint data, which will enable quality improvement and research activities to be undertaken. F6 Advancing and Leveraging the Investment Value of EMRs – Project ALIVE Good quality EMR data can be a major enabler to supporting transitions of care and improving patient care coordination. Within primary care the level of maturity relative to information management and support tends not to be well developed. With a focus on adoption and innovation, this presentation will share a hands on practical guide of enhancing the quality of data in EMRs.
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