Ultimate Blogging Championship

Tag: Members Only

  • Physician Orientation Toolkit

    Shared by AFHTO & the Osborne Group

    This toolkit provides easy access to a comprehensive collection of tools, resources and templates that will help orient new physicians to the FHT. Developed in partnership with The Osborne Group and a small working group comprised of AFHTO member EDs and physician volunteers. The Toolkit can be used:

    • As an orientation guide for physicians who are new to FHTs or FHT leadership
    • As a support for current physician leaders
    • As an educational tool to help explain the role of a FHT physician or lead physician
    • As a resource for FHT boards as they orient and support the lead physician role

    Download the Physician Orientation Toolkit:

    The material is organized as follows:

    1. Family Health Teams: This section describes FHT structure and governance;  the roles of the executive director and lead physician; funding and relationships to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN); and measurement and quality improvement.
    2.  Our Family Health Team: This section can be customized to describe your team’s vision, mission and values; strategic plan; quality improvement plan; organizational structure; patient population; physician/FHT relationship and roles; and community partnerships.
    3. Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Definitions

  • Patient and Provider Surveys

    Below are examples of patient and provider experience surveys from various family health teams. When using a survey, please remember to acknowledge the team that created it. 

    Patient Experience Surveys

    Provider Experience Surveys

  • IHP Advisory Council

    The Interprofessional Healthcare Providers (IHP) Advisory Council fosters leadership across the IHP community within primary care teams; provides input on primary care team matters related to IHP issues; and gives advice and input to the AFHTO board, staff, and other leadership councils.

    The council provides a mechanism to advance best-practice knowledge transfer and exchange, to enhance collaboration, and to give IHPs the opportunity to communicate operational, governance, and other team-related items.

    Meetings are generally held quarterly and are virtual. AFHTO will also occasionally reach out to council members for guidance and advice in between meetings.

    Any IHP who is a member of AFHTO is welcome to apply to join the council when there are openings. Terms are for two years, and a member can serve for up to three terms (6 years).

  • Summary of all MOH PHC Branch quarterly meeting updates

    AFHTO representatives meet with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Primary Healthcare Branch on a quarterly basis to discuss operational issues and more on behalf of members. Please see below for reports from each meeting.

    Next meeting: TBD

    Past meetings:

  • Risk Management Toolkit

    Shared by AFHTO & Collaborative Solutions

    Created March 2019

    Purpose of This Document
    This document is designed for use by AFHTO member Boards to support learning and fulfillment of the Board’s role in overseeing the effective management of risk in their organization.
    The document includes the following:

    • definition of risk management and other key terms;
    • a list of requirements related to risk management in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (Ministry)-Family Health Team (FHT) contract and attestation document;
    • an overview of risk management including domains of risk, the key components that make up a risk management approach, and the steps in a standard risk management process;
    • a description of the Board’s role in risk management and common governance practices for the Board to fulfill this role; and,
    • sample tools and links to other refer

    Access the tools:

    Resource includes: 

    1. Introduction
    2. Overview
    3. MOHLTC-FHT Contract Requirements
    4. Overview of Risk Management
      1. Domains of Risk
      2. Essential Components of Risk Management
      3. Typical Risk Management Process
    5. Risk Management and the Board
      1. Role of the Board in Risk Management
      2. Establishing Management Accountability
      3. Effective Governance is Essential to Managing Risk
      4. Organizing for Board Leadership on Risk
    6. Appendix
      1. Sample Risk Framework

     

  • Strategic Planning Toolkit

    Shared by AFHTO & Collaborative Solutions

    Created January 2019

    Purpose of This Document
    This document is designed for use by Primary Health Care Teams as a guide for developing your own strategic planning process and strategic plan. 

    The toolkit includes the following content: 

    • why strategic planning is important;
    • current Family Health Team (FHT) contract requirements related to strategic planning;
    • key roles in strategic planning and why a strategic plan is essential for the Board’s strategic leadership of the FHT/NPLC;
    • essential steps and components of a strategic planning process;
    • typical contents of a strategic plan, and,
    • tips on developing your strategic plan and integrating it into ongoing strategic decision-making and performance oversight. 
       

    Access the tools:

    Resource includes: 

    1. Introduction
    2. Overview
      1. What is Strategic planning and why we do it
      2. MOHLTC-FHT Contract Requirements
    3. Organizing for Strategic Planning
      1. Setting strategic direction is a key board responsibility
      2. Clarifying roles is the planning process
      3. Strategic planning committees
      4. Board retreats
    4. The Strategic Plan and Planning Process
      1. Standard Strategic Planning Process
    5. Appendix
      1. Environmental Scan List of Contents
      2. SWOT Analysis template
      3. Standard Strategic Planning Process
      4. Sample Board-Level Strategic Planning Questions

     

    Sample Strategic Plan

  • Data to Decisions eBulletin #84: Building Together

    In this issue

    • Register now for Building Together
    • Team-Based Approaches to Chronic Pain Management: Opioid Stewardship
    • Resources to Support Follow-Up after Hospitalization
    • The “Q” Council – Towards a More Self-Sustaining Community of Practice
    • QIPS, Program Planning and Schedule A

    Register now for Building Together

    What makes a good team great? To find out, join us on March 6 and 8 for Building Together: How to become a high-performing team. We’ll take a deep dive into what makes teams – your teams – work!  

    This FREE workshop, developed and presented with our research partners at Western University, originated with last year’s QI Enablers Study. Dr. Judith Belle Brown will lead us through an exploration of the foundational elements that teams are built on. In small-group sessions throughout the day, we’ll examine three of the pillars that are built on this foundation and elevate a team’s performance.

    This workshop is for every member of a primary care team. Everyone is welcome, from the official and unofficial leaders to the clinicians and the clerical staff. Team-building happens from the bottom up and the top down, and from all other directions as well.

    When and where?

    • Ottawa: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at the Holiday Inn Express Ottawa-Nepean, 2055 Robertson Road
    • Toronto: Friday, March 8, 2019 at St. Paul’s on Bloor, 227 Bloor Street East

    For more information, check out our FAQ or the web post. When you’re ready, register at the links below:

    We look forward to seeing you – and your team – there!

    Team-Based Approaches to Chronic Pain Management: Opioid Stewardship

    Nearly 20% of Canadian adults experience chronic pain. This webinar will provide insights to help your patients manage their pain safely and effectively.

    Join us on Thursday, February 28 from 12:00-1:00pm for Team-Based Approaches to Chronic Pain Management: Opioid Stewardship, presented by Dr. Jennifer Wyman. Topics to be covered include:

    • The role of the team in supporting patients who use opioids to manage chronic non-cancer pain.
    • When is the dose too high? Assessing opioid benefits and risks.
    • Supporting patients on their journey with chronic pain.
    • Recognizing opioid use disorder in the primary care setting.

    This webinar will also introduce you to the Opioids Clinical Primer. Led by Dr. Wyman from the University of Toronto, in collaboration with experts and community practitioners from across the province, this free, accredited online course is intended to help clinicians address opioid use disorder and implement safer opioid prescribing strategies in the management of chronic pain. Please consider reviewing Course 3: Safer Opioid Prescribing Strategies prior to the session.

    Please use this link to register for the webinar.  Can’t make it on the 28th? We’ll post the recording here along with the slide deck and other materials.

    Resources to Support Follow-Up after Hospitalization

    Meaningful follow-up for patients who have been hospitalized is an essential element of high-quality, comprehensive care. Not only does it reduce the likelihood of readmission, it saves lives. It has also been identified as a priority by AFHTO’s members and board. Transitions in care, including follow-up, are also a priority area for the 2019-20 QIPs. And it’s not as hard as you think!

    Need help? Here it is! We’ve pulled together resources from AFHTO and beyond, and we’ve turned them into a step-by-step process that can help whether you’re just getting started or fine-tuning a program that’s been in place for a while. If you think we’ve missed something, let us know.

    The “Q” Council – Towards a More Self-Sustaining Community of Practice

    The “Q” – that’s what we call the community of practice made up of QIDS Specialists, QIDSS-like folks, QIIMS, and E-QIP coaches – is five years old! And as you’ve probably heard by now, they’re embarking on a transition towards greater self-direction, peer support, and collective advocacy.

    A big, important step has been the selection of a council. This small but mighty group of peer leaders will advocate for the Q and for quality improvement; coordinate resource-sharing and collaboration; and help build an even stronger community of practice.

    Here are the members of the first-ever Q Council:

    • Brice Wong, QIDSS, Windsor FHT partnership
    • Cameron Berry, QIDSS, Kawartha North FHT partnership
    • Sandeep Gill, QIDSS, Queen Square FHT partnership
    • Abigail Scott, QIDSS-like, Queens FHT
    • Charles Bruntz, QIDSS, Timmins FHT

    Please join us in thanking Brice, Cam, Sandeep, and Abi for stepping forward as volunteer leaders. They’re taking on a big and important job.

    QIPs, Program Planning and Schedule A

    It’s that time again! QIP and Schedule A submission are right around the corner. We have tools to make these processes a little easier. Check them out!

    Help for your 2019-20 QIPs brings together resources from AFHTO, Health Quality Ontario, and others. These include webinars and documents to support you through the QIP process and orient you to this year’s priority themes and indicators, as well as tools to help you start making improvements in these areas.

    Program planning & evaluation tools will help you complete your Schedule A submissions. To help you choose measures for the evaluation portion of Schedule A, we’ve made some updates to the Program Performance Measures Catalogue (PPMC). As teams use it, the PPMC will help build consensus and consistency in program planning measures across the province, and this will make it easier for teams to learn from each other about how best to measure and improve program effectiveness. To make the most of the PPMC, check out the Quick Reference Guide to the Catalogue; Choosing Better Indicators: How teams are using the PPMC; and the PPMC Video Walkthrough.

     

    In Case You Missed It: Check out eBulletin #83 or other back issues here!

    Questions? Comments? Connect with the QIDS team at improve@afhto.ca.

  • Members invited to participate in Communities of Practice for Telus PS, OSCAR, Accuro, and P&P EMRs

    What is an EMR Community of Practice (CoP)?

    An EMR CoP is a group that seeks to optimize use of their EMR. We do this by continuously engaging EMR vendors, super-users, clinicians, QIDS Specialists and other team members to strengthen collective knowledge, expertise and problem solving capability in EMR offerings. Our EMR Communities of Practice collaborate closely with vendors to improve their understanding of AFHTO member requirements and to facilitate resolution of common problems in a mutually-agreed priority order. Several success stories have emerged from the EMR CoPs, illustrating the role they play in the spread of improvements, change in behaviours and expectations, and impact beyond their own boundaries. Unlike most EMR user groups, the communities of practice have the following characteristics:

    • Equality among members
    • Focus on issues in common
    • Led by users (QIDS Specialists, physicians, etc.)
    • Priorities set collectively via action item list
    • Problems solved collaboratively through sharing of best practices
    • Accountable to the community
    • Their own social networking platform
    • Regular meetings (via web or teleconference)

    Goals of the EMR Communities of Practice

    • Leverage the wisdom of the field
    • Change conversations with EMR vendors to expedite improvement
    • Identify data extraction tools and processes

    AFHTO members and staff support 4 EMR Communities of Practice:

    • Accuro
    • OSCAR
    • P&P
    • TELUS PS

    Want to join an EMR CoP? Please contact us for more information.      

  • Annual AFHTO Leadership Session Reports

    Every year, leaders from AFHTO member teams (board members, EDs/Admin Leads, and lead MDs/NPs) meet in advance of the annual conference. Below are links to past leadership session reports, along with the leadership themes from each year’s conference.

    2018 – Addressing Mental Health and Addictions Needs in Primary Care

    • In this year we partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, and co-designed a session to focus on mental health and primary care integration. Leaders from the CMHA chapters across the province  joined us  –  leaders in primary care – to discuss how both sectors can work more closely together to ensure patients receive timely access to care. The session was kicked off by our CEO, Kavita Mehta, and Camille Quenneville, CEO of the CMHA, Ontario. There were group discussions, followed by break-outs by region. We addressed the question “How do we ensure that we provide seamless care for our patients and create a well integrated system of care.” From this discussion, we took away action items to help teams be leaders in local change, as well as a set of recommendations to provide policy makers. Ministry officials also joined the discussion.

    2017- The Way Forward: Care Coordination Being Led by Primary Care

    • This year’s focus for the Leadership Triad Session was on care coordination and building primary care as the foundation of the health care system, such that more Ontarians have access to comprehensive primary care and coordination of care through primary care teams. Given the Minister’s LHIN mandate letter from May 1 2017 “to develop and implement a plan with input from primary care providers, patients, caregivers and partners that embeds care coordinators and system navigators in primary care to ensure smooth transitions of care between home and community care and other health and social services as required”, we believe care coordination to be a relevant and timely topic for both LHIN and AFHTO leaders.

    2016: Tackling the big issues: relationship and accountability questions in Ministry contracts

    • The objective of this leadership session was to find common ground and guide AFHTO’s position on particularly challenging issues related to the FHT contract, as informed by membership consultation over the preceding summer. Major themes were: standardizing FHT contracts; fostering teamwork and defining the”team”; defining the “population” for which governors are accountable, defining minimum standards of governance/addressing conflict of interest; and accountability and dispute resolution.

    2015: Leading Primary Care through the Next Stage

    • This Leadership Session was designed to identify issues and shape the direction to be taken by this sector, supported by the advocacy, networking and knowledge-sharing made possible through AFHTO. This year, the session focused on the question of a population-based approach to primary care.

    2014: Toward the Next Ministry Contract

    • This Leadership Session was part of a comprehensive process of working with AFHTO membership to identify the key principles to guide the journey toward more mature relationships, including contracts that support high-quality comprehensive interprofessional primary care. The report summarizes the outcomes of the entire process, including the leadership session.

    2013: Leadership in Health Care for Ontarians

    • Summarizes the key messages and insights into primary care leadership gleaned from the AFHTO 2013 Conference – including the Leadership Session, concurrent sessions within the leadership theme, and plenary sessions.

    2012: Priorities, Goals, and Actions

    • Leaders delved into the question of “How do we continue to build a stronger primary care foundation and work in a more integrated manner within the LHIN to ensure coordinated and seamless care for our patients?” The resulting Priorities, Goals and Actions report  lists the priorities and cross-cutting themes that emerged across all LHIN groups and documents the priorities, goals and short-term actions identified by the leaders from each LHIN.

  • Resources for Patient Engagement

    Patient Engagement Surveys  Other Ways to Engage Patients  Tools from Your Peers  Tools from Partner Organizations

    Measuring What Matters to Patients with Patient Experience Surveys

    AFHTO’s measurement initiative, Data to Decisions (D2D), aims to measure quality according to what matters most to patients, according to the Starfield Model of measurement. In 2015, AFHTO and Patients Canada to conducted an online survey, developed with the help of volunteer patients, to determine which indicators of health care quality are most important to patients. Over 200 patients participated. Patients told us that what matters most to them is:

    • Involvement in decisions about their care.
    • Reasonable wait times for appointments.
    • Opportunity to ask questions.
    • Providers who spend enough time with them.
    • Access to their regular care provider
    • Providers who listen to their feelings and concerns.

    Teams who contribute data to D2D have the opportunity to share data about how they are doing in terms of these indicators. One of the easiest ways to obtain this data is through a patient experience survey.

    Once you’ve completed your patient engagement survey, consider sharing the results with your patients. Check out this example from the Centre for Family Medicine FHT in Kitchener! Looking for something NEW to freshen up your patient experience surveys? Try the Patient Perceptions of Patient-Centredness Questionnaire (PPPC) [PDF]

    • The PPPC is a 14-question survey that will let your patients tell you how patient-centered THEY think their care is. Some of the questions are similar to the ones you know from the HQO’s PES, or some of the questions in Data to Decisions – but they dig a little deeper into the relationship between patient and provider, and how that relationship affects the care they receive. It can give you a fresh perspective on the care your team is providing, amplify your patients’ voice, and maybe help relieve some of the “survey fatigue.”
    • But what does it all mean? Once your patients have sent back their surveys, check out the Instructions for Scoring the PPPC [PDF] and enter the data in the PPPC Score Calculator [downloads an Excel workbook]. The calculator will automatically turn your patients’ answers into aggregate scores for the following:
      • Each of the 14 questions
      • Each of the 3 components of patient-centredness
        • How thoroughly their illness experience has been explored
        • Whether they found common ground with their physician
        • Whether they feel understood as a whole person
      • Overall patient-centrednesss.
    • Wondering where the PPPC might fit in with your existing patient experience survey, how the questions relate to D2D indicators, or what to do with the results once you’ve seen them? Check our our FAQ for answers!
    • Consider sharing your results! The more we hear back from teams like yours, the more we can help all teams deliver more patient-centered care. Send your completed calculator worksheet to us at improve@afhto.ca.

    Beyond the Survey: Engaging Your Patients in Quality Improvement

    HQO’s  Insights on Patient Engagement looks at the different ways health care organizations engage their patients. Across the health sector, surveys are the most common way to engage patients: 93% of home care organizations; 79% of interprofessional primary care teams, 74% of long-term care patients, and 66% of hospitals use patient surveys. In addition to surveys, here are some other ways organizations are engaging their patients, and how many interprofessional primary care teams are using them:

    • Focus groups, town halls and community meetings: 23% of iteams
    • Advisory council or similar: 9% of teams
    • Patients on the board: 10% of teams
    • Patient advisors on QI committees: 12% of teams
    • Patients involved in co-design: 9% of teams

    At 10%, interprofessional primary care teams have a small lead when it comes to including patients on their boards. At 23%, interprofessional primary care teams are in the middle of the pack (tied with long-term care) when it comes to engaging patients through focus groups, town halls, and community meetings.  Interprofessional primary care teams lag behind when it comes to including patients in other leadership and planning activities.

    • 80% of  long-term care facilities, 72% of hospitals, and 71% of home care organizations have patient advisory councils.
    • 59% of hospitals, 36% of home care organizations, and 23% of long-term care facilities engage patients in developing their QIP.
    • 43% of home care organizations, 33% of hospitals, and 14% of long-term care facilities include patient advisors in QI committees.
    • 38% of hospitals, 14% of home care organizations, and 14% of long-term care facilities include patients in co-design.

    Health Quality Ontario (2018), Insights on Patient Engagement, p. 2.

    Patient Engagement Tools from Your Peers

    Shared Resources from AFHTO member teams

    These tools were developed by AFHTO member FHTs and NPLCs to facilitate their own patient engagement efforts; the teams have generously agreed to share them with their fellow AFHTO members. Help build our library by sharing your own patient engagement tools and resources.

    AFHTO Conference Presentations on Patient Engagement

    Patient Engagement Tools from Partner Organizations

    Patients Canada

    Patients Canada has pioneered the practice of bringing the authentic patient voice to health care decision-making, ensuring decisions reflect patient priorities.

    Health Quality Ontario

    Health Quality Ontario (HQO) define patient engagement as “patients, families and health providers actively collaborating to improve Ontario’s health system.” They encourage and help providers to work with patients and families to understand and respond to their needs.

    For more information about these tools and resources or other patient engagement best practices, please email Engagement@HQOntario.ca.

    The Change Foundation

    Patient and caregiver engagement is an ongoing focus for The Change Foundation, an independent health policy think-tank that works to inform positive change in Ontario’s health care system.