Ultimate Blogging Championship

Author: sitesuper

  • Data to Decisions eBulletin #16: EMR Queries for D2D Data

    EMR queries for D2D data, including diabetes, ready for your consideration: check out the queries here and let us know what you think. D2D’s impact spreads west! Following our survey on patient expectations conducted in partnership with Patients Canada (see “Partnering with patients on measurement works” ), Carol Mulder was interviewed about it for their blog. This interview has now been picked up by Health Quality Council of Saskatchewan. Congratulations to all involved! Are you doing patient experience surveys this summer? Consider including the D2D questions described here. Has your team made the most of your EMR? Improved data entry, collection, or reporting? Submit a Bright Lights award nomination in the Advancing manageable meaningful measurement category by 12 noon on Tuesday, August 11 for a chance to win a $3000 education grant from Merck Canada. Visit our site for more details. Help spread the word. Invite others to sign up for the eBulletin online.  What is D2D? Data to Decisions (D2D) is a member-wide summary of performance on indicators that are both possible for members to measure and that are meaningful to members. See the D2D page on AFHTO’s website for more information.

  • EMR Data Quality Resources

    The EMR Data Quality Indicator consists of a number of components that reflect if and how well information is recorded in the EMR, which is distinct from how well care is delivered. The results of this indicator will support our work in showing the value of team-based care. EMRs are the only repository of data created and used by teams and therefore are the best source of data to reflect the contribution of the entire team to patient care. As well, EMRs are the most up-to-date source of data about the whole person available in primary care.  The goal is for teams to better understand the value and importance of having data in the EMR that is consistent, complete, and collectable. You may choose to submit data for one or all of the measures included in this roll-up indicator. Click on each measure below to access queries or further instructions on how to extract data for submission to D2D:

  • Deadline Extended – you now have until August 11 to nominate a Bright Light!

    In order to accommodate summer vacations and busy schedules, we have extended the deadline for Bright Lights nominations until 12 noon Tuesday, August 11.

    This is your opportunity to share your story with health teams from all across Ontario.

    To showcase the incredible diversity of our member teams, we want all of you to participate. Keep in mind that little innovations can have a huge impact, especially if they’re shared, so small teams are just as deserving of awards as big ones. We strongly encourage nominations from teams who have never submitted one before – and from those who have. Don’t be discouraged if you’ve previously submitted a nomination that did not receive an award; it may have been a strong contender. Consider nominating it again, and tell us how your innovation has grown or been refined since last time, and what results you’ve seen. Don’t miss out! Nominations close in a week. Winners in four categories will receive an education grant to help them build on their success. Relevant Links

    For more information you can also contact us at info@afhto.ca.

  • Supporting the Call for National Drug Coverage

    “When you can’t pay for the drugs you need to treat or manage your health conditions, you get sicker and develop more serious complications. Families, employers and communities are hurt as well. Primary care teams see this every day. We wholeheartedly support this campaign to move toward a national system of pharmacare.”- Angie Heydon, Executive Director The call to create a national drug coverage plan is gaining ground, and with the possibility of a federal election in a few short months, it can now make even greater strides with your support. Canada is the only industrialized country with universal health insurance that does not offer universal prescription drug coverage but we can change that. Health policy researchers and health organizations have started a Campaign for a National Drug Coverage. A national drug coverage plan which is public, affordable and safe, would mean that everyone in Canada would have access to the medicines they need. This campaign is aiming to build on the momentum following the recent Round Table Discussion on Pharmacare between Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and other provinces. We’ve given our support and invite our members and all those interested in improving access to healthcare to do so as well. Find out more by visiting http://campaign4nationaldrugcoverage.ca/.

  • Don’t wait until summer’s over – register for the AFHTO 2015 Conference today to access “early-bird” rates

    Plan your trip to the AFHTO 2015 Conference today!

    Register today for “early-bird” rates (applicable until September 28th)

    NEW – Earn education credits by attending the AFHTO 2015 Conference: Physicians: This program has been reviewed by the College of Family Physicians of Canada and is awaiting final accreditation by the College’s Ontario Chapter. Health Leaders: Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 2.5 Category II credits for Oct 27th Governance in Primary Care; 1.5 Category II credits for Oct 28th pre-conference (Leadership and IHP Sessions); 4 Category II credits for the Conference towards for their maintenance of certification requirement. Conference highlights:

    Visit our conference page to learn more about this year’s program – including IHP Community of Practice learning and networking sessions; EMR sessions, and our closing plenary discussion on the current state of primary care in Ontario.  

  • EMR queries for D2D – Childhood Immunization

    The EMR queries below were developed by QIDSS and the EMR Communities of Practice to help you extract data for submission to D2D.

    Telus PS Accuro Nightingale OSCAR P&P

     

    NOTE: All queries are tested and validated prior to release. However, changes that take place after the queries are released may affect how accurate they are. Such changes could include EMR software updates, new medications, and changes to standard clinical definitions. They may result in false positives, that is, patients being flagged who do not have the specified condition. They may also result in false negatives, that is, patients not being flagged who do have the condition. Queries are also limited by the quality of your EMR data. 

      The query criteria for childhood immunizations now reflect team-based care better:

    D2D results for this indicator may be lower than expected due to inclusion of this optional vaccine. Consider sharing your challenges and successes with your EMR Community of Practice or contact improve@afhto.ca.

    Telus PS  

    The D2D- Childhood Immunization v1 searches (.srx files) will extract data for the numerator and denominator for all children with up-to-date immunizations. Save these searches to your desktop and import into your EMR. This guide provides instructions for importing the searches along with screenshots of the searches.  You might need the help of your QIDSS, IT staff or other persons who usually run queries in your EMR. . Consider sharing your challenges and successes with the Telus PS CoP or contact  improve@afhto.ca

    Accuro 

    Please download the D2D- Childhood Immunization v1 queries from the publisher. You may need the help of your QIDSS, IT staff or any other person who usually runs queries in your EMR. Consider sharing your challenges and successes with the Accuro CoP or contact  improve@afhto.ca

    Nightingale 

    It appears that the Cumulative Bonus Report for childhood immunizations almost matches the current D2D definition. These instructions show you how to access the immunization data using the Health Maintenance (HM) report. To learn how to clean up immunization data so the HM report works effectively, have a look at this guide. Please consider sharing any feedback you might have with the Nightingale CoP or contact  improve@afhto.ca

    OSCAR 

    The D2D-Childhood Immunization v1 query generates the number and percentage of active patients 30-42 months (inclusive) who are up-to-date with immunizations. Please save the query to your computer and import into your EMR. You might need the help of your QIDSS, IT staff or any other person who usually run queries in your EMR to install the query into your EMR. Please consider sharing your challenges and successes running this query with the OSCAR CoP or contact  improve@afhto.ca

    P&P 

    If you have access to backend data for your P&P EMR, use this updated query – Childhood Immunization V2. It was originally developed by West Carleton FHT for D2D 3.0 (2015). and was updated by P&P in July 2018. Please consider sharing any front end workarounds you might have with the P&P CoP or contact  improve@afhto.ca

  • Data to Decisions eBulletin #15 – July 23, 2015

    Last call for clinicians – please remind your clinicians to join the conversations by tomorrow, July 24, 2015 to come up with better indicators for Emergency visits, 7-day follow-up and other clinical measures to be included in D2D. Moving on to D2D 3.0: Start preparing now for D2D 3.0 to be launched in Jan 2016. Do your physicians want their own data? You can help them get it 3 different ways! Need a hand building a registry of patients? Check out this guide for creating EMR queries on COPD and (coming soon) Diabetes. Free e-learning video series on Measurement in Primary Care from the University of Toronto. Check out the YouTube channel to start watching. Register for the AFHTO 2015 Conference! October 28 & 29, 2015 – Westin Harbour Castle. Help spread the word. Invite others to sign up for the eBulletin online.  What is D2D? Data to Decisions (D2D) is a member-wide summary of performance on indicators that are both possible for members to measure and that are meaningful to members. See the D2D page on AFHTO’s website for more information.

  • D2D 2.0 report release: AFHTO members advance primary care measurement

    AFHTO members are leading the way to advance manageable and meaningful measurement across primary care. This work is critical. Around the world, cost-effective, high-performing health systems are based on a strong foundation of comprehensive primary care; robust measurement is a mandatory ingredient for strengthening that foundation.

    D2D 2.0 demonstrates significant progress in this journey:

    • More than 100 family health teams and nurse practitioner-led clinics have voluntarily submitted their data.
    • This gives insight into the care of over 1.7 million Ontarians.
    • Comparative analyses indicate the results are representative of the full AFHTO membership of Family Health Teams (FHTs) and Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics (NPLCs).

    The D2D journey is revealing how to get better at measuring what matters most:

    • AFHTO members are shaping implementation of Health Quality Ontario’s Primary Care Performance Measurement Framework (PCPMF) – in identifying priority measures for system and practice level and in refining these measures.
    • Working with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), AFHTO members are leading the way to measure the average cost of all health care received by the panel of patients served by each team, adjusted for the characteristics of that patient panel.  This measure is highly important since it:
      • Can be calculated for the panel of patients in any type of primary care practice in the province.
      • Enables cost to be monitored over time to better understand the impact of improvements in quality of primary care and the health of patients on the sustainability of health care system.
    • To better reflect the many facets of comprehensive primary care that matter to both patients and providers, AFHTO members have completed their first iteration of a composite measure of quality.
    • Working across such a large number of primary care teams is enabling innovation to simplify data extraction from EMRs and improvement in data quality.

    D2D 2.0 shows encouraging results for AFHTO members and provides guidance for further improvement (click here for table):

    • Overall, AFHTO members are performing better than the provincial average on same day/next day access (40% better), cancer screening (10% better), and patient satisfaction with their involvement in decision-making (4% better).
    • There are preliminary indications that patient satisfaction with the courtesy of office staff has improved over the past 3 years (20% improvement).
    • Most teams rank high on some indicators and lower on others. D2D enables teams to compare themselves to their peers and pinpoint their improvement activity.

    AFHTO has created a series of handouts that highlight some of the exciting results we have seen to date and illustrate how we got there.

    The D2D journey continues. Measures will continue to be refined to become more and more meaningful to providers and their patients, and acted upon to improve care. Watch for the next iteration in January 2016.    

  • Accessing physician-specific data

    Over 100 teams contributed to D2D 2.0 in June 2015 and it looks like people are using it! Readership stats show that there is an increase in regular viewing of the D2D 2.0 webpage over that of D2D 1.0. One thing we know is that people end up wanting to drill down into their data – often with physician-specific data.

    Here are 3 ways your team can access physician-specific data:

    1. Sign up physicians for access to their breast, cervical, and colorectal screening rates through the CCO Screening Activity Report (SAR) portal.
    2. Sign up physicians for their own Primary Care Practice Report from the HQO portal to compare their data to regional and provincial sources (this report contains most of the D2D indicators that came from ICES data).
    3. Enrol your team in EMRALD  or CPCSSN for better access to EMR data to improve performance.
      1. EMRALD is a database, housed at ICES, derived from electronic medical records (EMRs) maintained by family physicians. Data collection occurs twice a year and does not interfere with day-to-day clinic operations. Details on how to participate are on the ICES website.
      2. CPCSSN is the first pan-Canadian multi-disease public and population health surveillance system. CPCSSN networks across the country collect health data from EMRs every three months, which allows for health patterns to be detected in a timely way. To participate in CPCSSN contact your regional network.

    ContactCarol Mulder for more information.

  • St. Michael’s Hospital Academic FHT Filling the Gap in Regent Park

    July 16 – St. Michael’s Hospital Academic FHT has opened the Sumac Creek Health Centre to help serve Toronto’s downtown east region, including Regent Park, Moss Park and St. James Town. A densely populated area, it’s been underserved with an estimated 10,000 unattached patients who don’t have a primary care provider. A community engagement specialist will help determine the area’s specific needs and ensure the clinic is connected with other community agencies to provide more holistic health care. The centre will also house the Flexible Outreach Community Urban Support (FOCUS) program. A partnership program with community-based organization Cota, it offers 24-7 support for those dealing with complex mental health and addiction issues. For further details you can click on the links below: