All primary care teams are required to submit a Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) for the 2017-2018 fiscal year by April 1, using the QIP Navigator from Health Quality Ontario (HQO). As always, there are suggested/recommended indicators and priority areas for you to focus on. If these are relevant for your team, feel free to incorporate them into your QIP. If there are other indicators (or even other definitions) that are more meaningful for your team, you should include them OR add them to the suggested indicators. Remember that teams are required to submit a QIP but the content of the QIP is up to the team: “If organizations choose not to include a priority indicator, they should provide this rationale in the comments section only” (QIP Guidance, pg 10). An example of rationale might be: Our team finds our alternative indicator (or definition) to be a more meaningful measure of [priority area] and has been tracking it internally and/or via D2D or other reporting process.
Time-saver tip
Consider using the D2D indicators in your QIP, assuming they are meaningful to your team. This will save you time and effort to capture different sets of data for both reports. You will see that this alignment is already starting to happen with the inclusion of the D2D definition for “follow-up after hospitalization” added to the HQO list this year.
QIP tools from HQO
Along with the 2017-18 QIP Navigator, HQO has released a number of tools to support you in your QIP development, including a QIP Guidance Document and 2017-18 QIP Indicator Technical Specifications. Feeling lost? Get oriented with HQO’s QIP Education and Navigator training sessions running from December 5 to 21.
Addressing the Equity Question
HQO has introduced an open-ended question in this year’s QIP about what steps your team is taking to address health equity. This free decision-support toolkit can help you get started on a plan to address the social determinants of health in your team’s practice.
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