Ultimate Blogging Championship

Tag: Members Only

  • AFHTO 2013 Conference – Meaningful Use of EMRs

    Theme Description: “Meaningful use” goes beyond storing patient information in an electronic version of a paper chart. It includes using the data and functionality of the EMR to advance the clinical process of care and improve outcomes.  The US Centres for Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) has defined “meaningful use” as using EHR/EMR technology to:

    • Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities
    • Engage patients and families in their health care
    • Improve care coordination
    • Improve population and public health
    • All the while maintaining privacy and security

    Presentations in this stream will focus on what can be done in the FHT environment to develop a greater degree of “meaningful use” to achieve these ends. C8 – Guelph HealthLink:   Resurfacing an integrated Electronic Health Record (IEHR) The long promised integrated Electronic Health Record (IEHR)is developing a new energy through the HealthLink initiative. A Guelph FHT IT team explains their approach to providing tools to patients and HealthLink partners that shares useful information supporting coordinating community assessment and ongoing care. D8 – How can I remember what FHT programs are offered? – How the EMR can help! This presentation will describe an effective collaboration for integrated quality improvements across partner agencies through joint LEAN training to develop skills and enrich the understanding of the organizations for future teamwork, integrated process enhancements and change. E8 – Personal Health Records – not so scary after all The purpose of this panel will be to explore several clinics’ experiences with a PHR, including benefits to patients and providers, implementation tips, and potential challenges. Through these clinics’ stories, attendees will gain valuable knowledge regarding the current state and future vision of PHRs and how they can get started in their own teams.

  • AFHTO 2013 Conference – Innovation in Interprofessional Collaborative Team Implementation

    Theme Description: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – this is the goal of interprofessional teams.  Interprofessional collaboration is the process of communication and decision making that enables the separate and shared knowledge and skills of care providers – and the patient – to create synergy in patient care. It involves the concepts of mutual respect, maximum use of collective resources, and awareness of individual accountabilities, and competence and capabilities within respective scopes of practice. Presentations in this stream will focus on innovative methods to develop evolving, dynamic teams focused on the value of collaboration and inclusiveness. A7-A – Unhealthy FHOs Equals an Underperforming FHT: Common Problems in FHO’s and How they can be Corrected to Improve FHT Performance A major factor in the success of every Family Health Team is how well the Family Health Organization (FHO) is performing. Cirrus Consulting Group has learned the common problems that exist between FHOs and FHTs and best practices to improve both, the relationship between the two parties and overall FHT performance. A7-B – A focus of health care reform: managing physical disabilities/complex patients in primary care The Centre for Family Medicine in Kitchener has operated an inter-professional clinic for the past 3 years that has broken down the barriers to improve access and quality of care to persons with disabilities. This presentation will review the set up and organization of the clinic and strengths and challenges encountered. A7-C – Collaborating With Physicians Into Mental Health Treatment This presentation will be aimed at demonstrating examples whereby family physicians and their Interdisciplinary Health professionals have collaborated mental health practice. The overview provides ideas on how to motivate physicians to participate in individual or group sessions including viewpoints by a psychometrist/mental health program lead and two physicians to ensure a collaborative approach. B7 – The Obesity Story: Using the Obesity Services Planning Framework to Improve Team Practice This session aims to familiarize participants with the key features and possible uses of a flexible population-based planning framework for managing obesity in team-based primary care. C7 – Nurturing Collaboration in a Large, Geographically Dispersed FHT Strategies look to respect and respond to local differences, while also capitalizing on the advantages of a larger organization to develop FHT-wide policies and programs.  This presentation will share some of those strategies and note the successes and challenges. D7 – The System Navigator – the new role in the McMaster Family Health Team At McMaster FHT, the Case Manager/System Navigator was developed in recognition of the many issues, medical and non-medical, a patient faces that affect their health and well-being. This presentation will introduce this new position in the health care team, explore strategies for describing and applying for this role within the inter-professional family health team setting and discuss case scenarios /patient experiences. E7 – A Unique Interprofessional Approach to Delivering Ongoing Care to Patients with Celiac Disease in a Primary Care Setting : A Dietitian, Physician and Chaplain Collaboration A unique team including a dietitian, family physician and chaplain began to look closer at how to better identify and accommodate a vulnerable population with celiac disease, often lost to care in family practice, with the intention to enhance knowledge translation and earlier intervention by clinicians. F7 – Developing Resilience in our FHT’s through Innovative Program in Mindfulness Training Mindfulness based programs have been shown to enhance provider resilience, team functioning and quality of care. This workshop with begin with a definition of mindfulness and review some of the burgeoning evidence of the effectiveness of mindfulness programs for health care providers and teams.

  • AFHTO 2013 Conference – Advances in Health Promotions and Chronic Disease Management

    Theme Description: Family Health Teams have been focused on health promotion, disease prevention and chronic disease management since the first teams were announced in 2005. What advances have we made? What is the new knowledge that’s emerging? What is the evidence for what works to keep people as healthy as they can be? A5 – Pulmonary Rehabilitation in the Barrie Community Family Health Team – in Primary Care A presentation of patient flow in the BCFHT will demonstrate how a PR program normally hosted in a tertiary care center; can be as effective in the primary care setting, utilizing a team approach. B5 – STOP with FHTs: Building Capacity to deliver Smoking Cessation Programming in Family Health Teams Highlighting FHTs as they integrate smoking cessation interventions into individual and organizational practices, this presentation will show how multi-stakeholder partnerships collaborate to create comprehensive smoking cessation programming in the primary care setting in Ontario. C5 – The “One Stop Shop” Diabetes program: Engaging, Aligning, and Integrating interdisciplinary team to create a patient-focused program This workshop will be divided into two components; a presentation outlining DCG’s program, followed by group discussion related to current challenges and possible solutions at DCG and other similar programs within your FHT in an effort to continue to provide exceptional interdisciplinary care to the diabetes population. D5 – Outcome Measurement: Developing a culture of Measurement, Optimization and Impact at Diabetes Care Guelph The successes and challenges related to tracking patient data in a diabetes education center are presented so other practices may benefit from the experience shared with the goal of reducing the likelihood of repeating similar time-intensive challenges and increasing process efficiency. E5 – Sustainability versus Feasibility: lessons learned from a pilot health coaching project This project titled: ‘Health Coaching in Primary care: a feasibility model” piloted health coaching for patients with diabetes in two Family Health Teams and a Community Health Centre. F5 – Exercise; The missing ingredient in the FHT recipe We will present some background data on the role of exercise therapy for chronic disease management, as well as the successes and challenges with including this type of program in a FHT, as well as a summary of outcome data and future program plans

  • AFHTO 2013 Conference – Integration: Building the team beyond the FHT

    Theme description: While Health Links are focused on high users of health services, all Ontarians stand to benefit – as patients and citizens – from greater collaboration among healthcare providers, other agencies, community stakeholders and governments. Presentations in this stream will focus on building collaborative relationships and working with community partners towards providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place.  This includes improving  the patient’s experience during their journey through the health care system, and identifying and addressing gaps in the quality of care and service delivery for individuals with complex chronic illnesses and other needs that compromise health. A4 – CVFHT Lung League – Our journey to decreasing ER visits by 50% This team presentation will describe both internal and external process improvement and outcomes through a variety of measurements and patient/stakeholder case studies including process improvements made to CDM, prevention and business case. B4-A – PATH – Partners Advancing Transitions In Healthcare PATH – “Partners Advancing Transitions in Healthcare” is a community-based partnership between patients, caregivers and providers working together to understand people’s experiences at key transitions between healthcare settings and services. The PATH Partners will work together in teams, using experience based co-design, to re-design transition processes and measure the impact of the improved processes. B4-B – Strategies to address the social determinants of health and health equity in clinical practice The presentation will begin with a brief overview of the impact of the social determinants of health on overall population health followed by an overview of the study design and methodology. C4 – “Mind the Gap” – Addressing Phlebotomy in Rural Ontario: A Case Study in Partnership, Community Engagement and Grass Roots Initiative-Taking During this presentation, first hand experiences of mobilizing local community stakeholders, advocating with the Ministry of Health, collaborating with partner health service providers, and engaging the private sector will be shared. D4 – Adopting a Network Approach – promoting skills and preventing duplication in multi-provider areas via networks that work (presentation to follow) Participants will see concrete examples of a network approach to successful stakeholder partnerships and its impact on access to care as well as benefits for providers.  Successes, challenges and lessons learned will be shared, as will specific information on best practices in smoking cessation and falls prevention program delivery. E4 – Integrated Hospice Palliative Care: Bringing Family Physicians Back into the Team Recognizing the critical role played by Family Physicians in caring for patients at the end-of-life, local stakeholders collaborated to re-integrate primary care in the provision of HPC care in Guelph.  This integrated approach being implemented in Guelph respects patients’ end-of-life care wishes while supporting families into bereavement all while maintaining the trusted patient – family physician relationship. F4 – Innovative Partnerships to improve patient care and address social determinants of health This presentation discussed two key points: to help reduce ER visits and support complex patients; and to support patients with social determinants of health barriers.

  • AFHTO 2013 Conference – Leadership and Governance for Quality

    Theme Description: The primary care sector is at the centre of transformational change in Ontario. FHTs are faced with an increased need to be accountable to patients and the ministry for providing excellent quality care to their communities. Presentations in this category will focus on how FHT leaders are developing the skills, structures, processes, relationships and culture to govern effectively and advance quality in all its dimensions. This includes the board’s role in developing, implementing and monitoring quality improvement plans and overall performance. A1 – Reflections on Board Development Thames Valley Family Health Team having  had more than 6 years of experience in evolution of its Board from a steering committee working on a proposal, to a policy Board fully engaged in their Governance role. This presentation will describe this journey, with particular focus being on the sharing of the tools and templates that we have found and/or developed to support a high level of functioning as a Board. B1 – Effective Governance for Quality and Patient Safety in Primary Care in Ontario This study examines and identifies the governance structures and processes, which enable quality and safety of care in effectively governed primary care organizations in Ontario. C1 – Integrating a Critical Incident Reporting Framework into your FHT This presentation will outline our academic family health team’s on-going journey to develop a critical incident reporting framework and how it fits into our broader quality improvement and patient safety framework. D1 – Identifying opportunities for QI Planning in Primary Care Identifying Opportunities for QI Planning in Primary Care – This session is designed to support primary care teams in the process of identifying and prioritizing quality improvement opportunities. E1 – Strengthening the Leadership Triad:  The critical partnership of Board Chair, Lead Physician and Executive Director A survey of FHT specific challenges around effective governance and a discussion of strategies to meet those challenges. F1 – Effective Governance in Primary Care and F1 – Quality Improvement Plans Year 1: A Giant Step Forward Share key observations from QIPs submitted by primary care organizations in year 1 (HQO). Illustrate how QIPs can be used to support shorter and longer term improvement planning (HQO). Discuss leadership and governance role in supporting the development of QIPs and driving improvement (CPSI)

  • QIDs Implementation Update-2013-10-10

    Highlights:

    • Members named to the Quality Improvement Decision Support Steering Committee (QSC)
    • Arrival of the first QIDS Specialists and the Provincial QIDS Team
    • Steps underway to improve information and knowledge exchange with EMR Vendors, including EMR user sessions at the AFHTO 2013 Conference
    • Community of Practice for Decision Support Team Members is being established
    • ACTION REQUESTED: please complete a brief QIDS Implementation Status Survey to help shape priorities and inform the work of QSC and the Provincial QIDS Team. Please complete a brief QIDS Implementation Survey

    The survey will be open until 12 noon on October 17th, 2013. QSC Named: Your Quality Improvement Decision Support Steering Committee (QSC) has been named. It reflects widespread enthusiasm and support for the goals of the QIDS program. According to QSC Chair Ross Kirkconnell, “this is a great opportunity to provide more effective support to the great work FHTs are doing in Quality Improvement, and build greater capacity to tell our story to the rest of the system. I am really looking forward to working with this very talented and committed group.” Membership Chair:    Ross Kirkconnell, Executive Director, Guelph FHT; AFHTO Board Members:

    • Katherine Campbell, Director, Service Quality Integration, Dryden Regional Health Ctr.
    • Gail Czukar, Executive Director, Humber River FHT
    • Sanjeev Goel, Lead Physician, Wise Elephant FHT
    • Karen Hall-Barber, Family Physician and Assistant Professor Dept.  of Family Medicine, Queen’s
    • Monique Hancock, Executive Director STAR FHT
    • Sherry Lynn Harrington, Director, Program Innovation &Evaluation, Peterborough FHT
    • Mary Keith, Executive Director, Garden City FHT
    • Karl Langton, Health Informatics Coordinator Hamilton FHT; Peer Leader OntarioMD
    • Kevin Samson, Physician, East Wellington FHT, Co-Lead AFHTO PSS User Group

    Advisors:

    • Rick Glazier,  Family and Community Medicine, St. Michaels; Sr.  Scientist ICES, AFHTO Board
    • Michelle Griever, North York Family Health Team

    Ex Officio:

    • Elizabeth Keller,  Director Product Management, OntarioMD
    • Ben King, Senior Program Consultant, eHealth Liaison Branch, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
    • eHealth Ontario (confirmed, rep. TBD)

    Staff:     Tim Burns, Provincial Lead QIDS, AFHTO QIDS Specialists are coming on board: Some QIDS Specialists are now in place. Say hello to Melanie Young (Kenora), Meghan Peters (Sudbury- Val Caron), and Thiv Paramsothy (East GTA). Several more are expected to start within the next few weeks.  Please be sure to put newly appointed QIDS Specialists in touch with Tim Burns (tim.burns@afhto.ca) as they join up.  Employers are also encouraged to send QIDS Specialists to the AFHTO Conference for networking opportunities and a great deal of content that should be really interesting for them and highly relevant to their roles. Provincial QIDS Team Members: AFHTO is also very pleased to welcome Carol Mulder and Jenya Doudareva to the provincial team: Carol Mulder: Quality Improvement Decision Support Specialists Practice Lead Carol comes very well prepared to this role as she has extensive background in teaching and decision support capacity building. In addition to being a trained veterinarian, Carol holds an MSc in Epidemiology and is pursuing a doctorate in Quality improvement Knowledge, Beliefs and Behaviour. She has held senior roles in information management and was most recently the co-lead for the South West Regional Integrated Decision Support strategy.  Carol will be starting on October 21, 2013. Jenya Doudareva: EMR/Technical Lead for QIDS Jenya has an M.A.Sc in Industrial Engineering from the Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering at the University of Toronto. Jenya has worked on projects including multi-site process improvement in cancer screening and decision support models for orthopedic surgery scheduling. Jenya will be starting on October 16, 2013. EMR Vendor relationships: The QIDS Program will be working with the EMR vendor community to improve information and knowledge exchange and increase value for members. This approach builds on progress made by the Telus/PSS User Group (and thanks to Kevin Sampson, Fok-Jee Leung, Clarys Tirel and the rest of the PSS User Group). Responsibility for vendor relationship strategies is now transferring to the QIDS Program where it will be expanded under the guidance of the QSC. As a first step, EMR Vendor reps and Information and Knowledge Exchange Sessions have been set up for 8:00 to 8:45am on October 22 at the AFHTO conference for Bell, Nightingale, OSCAR, QHR Technologies and Telus. A vendor rep was not available from P&P Data Systems, however there will be an opportunity for users of their EMR to share information. In all, over 320 individuals have registered for these sessions. Thanks to registrants for over40 specific suggestions for topics to be addressed by vendors. These will be shared with vendors this week.  Please contact Tim (tim.burns@afhto.ca) if you have any questions or need information regarding EMR vendor sessions. Community of Practice for Decision Support Team Members: Family Health Teams already have a lot of capacity in analytics and decision support and have a great deal to be proud of in what has already been accomplished. One of Carol Mulder’s primary roles will be to develop a Community of Practice for FHT professionals primarily focused (or interested in) Quality Improvement, Data Management and Analysis or Decision Support. This Community of Practice will help to will create relevant learning and knowledge sharing opportunities for many FHT team members in addition to the QIDS Specialists themselves. To assist us understanding how to identify and plan for this community we request that you take a moment to complete the survey. QIDS Implementation Survey: ACTION REQUESTED Please take a moment to complete the attached survey. It collects information which is of interest to all FHTs and is especially timely as the QSC will be starting its work this month. The information will help to provide QSC with a good snapshot of the program’s overall status and help the provincial team to launch a community of practice that will be open to all FHTs. Please complete a brief QIDS Implementation Survey

    The survey will be open until 12 noon on October 17th, 2013.

  • QIDS Resource Documents

    QIDS Program Background

    Data to Decisions 1.0 Resources

    Recruitment Tools

    Partnership Documents:

    • PART D: Relationship between local and provincial (AFHTO) program (Pending)

  • Quality Improvement tools from CCO and program update from HQO

    Cancer Care Ontario Toolkits: Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) has developed an Advance Care Planning (ACP) toolkit for primary care practices that decide to include ACP as part of their QIP. Please click here for the ACP Toolkit. This new toolkit is in addition to the previously distributed toolkit Cancer Screening toolkit which some FHTs are already using to improve cancer screenings in their practices. Please click here for the Cancer Screening toolkit. Many thanks to Dr. Suzanne Strasberg from the Jane Finch FHT who was part of the development of these toolkits and is supporting the dissemination of these toolkits Update on the Advanced Access, Efficiency, and Chronic Disease Management initiative from HQO: Forwarded on behalf of Susan Taylor, HQO: Health Quality Ontario’s Advanced Access, Efficiency, and Chronic Disease Management initiative will no longer be restricted to a cycle of waves. Their new, more versatile continuous intake model will allow Health Quality Ontario to offer support through:

    • An extensive series of accredited e-learning modules
    • A variety of quality improvement resources and tools
    • Consultations with Primary Care Champions and Quality Improvement Advisors

    In order to engage in the new and improved Advanced Access, Efficiency & Chronic Disease Management initiative, please contact HQO’s quality improvement specialists at: learningcommunityinfo@hqontario.ca.

  • Update from AFHTO-PSS working group: report from meeting with TELUS-HEALTH

    The AFHTO – PSS working group continues to meet with the PS Suite team from TELUS-Health to address the FHTs issues with the EMR. Recently, representatives from the working group met with the leadership team at TELUS Health to ensure that the FHT priorities and concerns were being heard by TELUS and would be addressed. Background: The AFHTO- PSS working group has been meeting since February 2012 (click here for the last update). Working within the priorities identified by the FHTs in the June 2012 AFHTO survey, the working group developed a list of actionable items in collaboration with the TELUS PSS team.  These priority actionable items were presented to the TELUS team during the summer. Over this period most of the responses from the TELUS team had not provided as much clarification as expected by the AFHTO working group.  To address some our concerns, representatives from the AFHTO working group met with the TELUS-Health leadership on September 23. Update from the meeting with TELUS Health Leadership Team:

    • TELUS Health Leadership heard and acknowledged the concerns expressed around communications and the non-committal answers to the actionable items. A candid and positive discussion took place with all present at the meeting.
    • TELUS Health stated that they:
      • Remain committed to PS Suite and the FHT users.
      • Plan to invest in PS Suite along with the two other EMR platforms that it supports.
      • Do not expect users to change their EMRs and users can expect improvements to the functionality over time.
    • TELUS Health Leadership and AFTHO agreed on the following next steps:
      • TELUS PS Suite clarified that the responses to the priority action items were “initial” and that there would be updates. TELUS PS Suite will review each item with their team and provide more specific responses prior to the AFHTO conference. AFHTO requested, where possible, to be provided a point person for items and an indication when there would be a status update.
      • TELUS team will work closely with the AFHTO working group on communication to FHT users.  TELUS is committed to improve communication with FHT users.
      • AFHTO and TELUS will establish regular leadership meetings to ensure accountability for the agreed processes and outcomes.

    Present at the TELUS-AFHTO meeting: Ron Sparks, Head of Sales, TELUS Physician;  Shawn Vincent, Director, R&D; Charles Funk, Manager, Product Management;  Ken Piaggio, Director, Client Services; Shannon Jackson, Manager, Health business consulting; Manon Greer, Senior Product manager; Jeremy Gordon, Client Services manager; and  Fok-Jee Leung (Bruyere FHT); Kevin Samson (East Wellington FHT); Tim Burns (AFHTO); Clarys Tirel (AFHTO). PS Suite User Session at AFHTO conference: About 200 people have registered for the PS Suite User session. The AFHTO PSS user group will give an update on the work that they have completed and on the responses from TELUS Health to our priority action items. TELUS Health Leaders will be at the session and will outline the next steps in our collaboration to ensure that FHT PS Suite users’ needs are heard and, where possible, met. Please send an email to Clarys Tirel (clarys.tirel@afhto.ca) with any specific questions that you want answered at the session.  We will make time for questions, but given that the tight timeframe, we want to plan ahead as much as possible.

  • Report from quarterly meeting with MOHLTC FHT unit – September 18, 2013

    FHT Directors representing AFHTO and AOHC members met with the FHT Unit on Wednesday. To access the full report, please click here. The main focus of the meeting was the discussion on budget flexibility and accountability. The FHTs presented the position proposed by the Executive Director Advisory Council at their meeting of August 28, which was to achieve:

    • A global budget divided into two envelopes, one for HR and the other for operations, such that:

    The EDAC position was approved by the AFHTO board and is supported by the AOHC C-FHT Executive Directors. (To access the briefing note on this position, please click here.) The MOHLTC FHT unit agrees that, given the current fiscal constraints and the stage of development of some of the FHTs, moving towards increased budget flexibility and reviewing the accountability framework is the right direction.  All parties agreed that a staged approach that would be developed with a goal of moving a number of FHTs to a hybrid global budget for the next fiscal year, contingent on final ministry decisions. All have committed to collaborate on the first two steps to move this forward:

    1. Readiness assessment: Through EDAC, AFHTO will prepare initial draft of criteria for assessing FHTs in terms of their readiness to govern and manage a more flexible budget.
    2. More meaningful accountability reporting:  MOHLTC will share their initial work to review the reporting structure as a starting point for further discussion on changing the accountability framework.

    There remains the need to find ways to ensure decisions about the size of budgets can remain consistent with changing demands and conditions over time. The meeting also provided the opportunity to review with the Ministry the process to address current budget pressures. The Ministry re-affirmed its commitment to ensure that the budget reductions do not impact negatively on patient care.  The Ministry coordinators have been instructed to be flexible and to work with FHTs on a case-by-case basis to free up funds within the approved FHT budget, or if necessary consider other measures. The Ministry provided updates on a number of issues identified by EDAC:

    • Status of the BSM review
    • Sessional fees
    • Transfer of rostered patients
    • Quality Improvement Plans
    • QIDSS Program
    • IHPS in non-FHT models
    • Physiotherapy in FHTs