Bits & Pieces: Infant and High-risk Children RSV Prevention Program; Help break the tie for livestreamed sessions
Your Biweekly News & Updates In This Issue Infant and high-risk children RSV prevention program AFHTO 2024 Conference: we need your help to break the tie 2025 Compensation Planning Survey HPV testing implementation: online resource hub available Reminder- UpToDate discount available to members News and updates including COVID-19 XBB vaccine market withdrawal and covert […]
Bits & Pieces: nominations to the Board of Directors open and more
Your Weekly News & Updates In This Issue Nominations to the AFHTO Board of Directors are open until August 1, 2024 Ontario consulting on expanding role of nurse practitioners AFHTO 2024 Conference registration now live Bright Lights deadline next Monday, July 15 Member stories Nominate a partner or healthcare inspiration for an AFHTO Board […]
Spring Highlights 2023: Ministry of Health (MOH) Quarterly Meeting and AFHTO Leadership Council
AFHTO met with the Primary Health Care Branch on May 25th for a quarterly check in and with the AFHTO Leadership Council on June 8th. Below are highlights from those meetings and updates on work that is underway. Expression of Interest (EOI): EOI applications are due June 16th, 2023, by 5pm Eastern. AFHTO continues to […]
QI in Action eBulletin #126: The Health Equity Questionnaire
In this Issue: The Health Equity Questionnaire: Standardized Entry of Social Determinants of Health into EMRs Resources for social determinants of health Food for thought Updated Primary Care Data Reports for Ontario Health Teams Help shape the future of virtual health care in Ontario Phase I Guidance for Clinically Appropriate Use of Virtual Care for […]
Bits & Pieces: improving IHP networking and more
Your Weekly News & Updates In This Issue AFHTO’s IHP Directory: Improving IHP networking and communication Farewell to Raveen Bahniwal Climate Conscious Inhaler Prescribing webinar materials available Consultations with physicians on PHIPA changes Community Services Recovery Fund IMPaCT survey Updated recommendations on the use of Paxlovid and Evusheld Reminder- join AFHTO’s Executive Director Mentorship […]
Bits & Pieces: market salary review underway and more
Your Weekly News & Updates In This Issue Market salary review underway Reminder- Climate Conscious Inhaler Prescribing, Dec. 8 Member stories Supporting Caregivers webinar materials available Highlights and implications of the Ontario Science Table’s brief on primary care materials available The latest on COVID, Influenza and Respiratory Viruses materials and more New guidance […]
Bits & Pieces: CMOH & Ministry memos re Omicron and more
Your Weekly News & Updates In This Issue Focused vaccination efforts in response to Omicron variant #AFHTO2021 videos + 2022 planning committee sign up 2021 University of Toronto Family Medicine Report Post COVID-19 guidance and more Primary care data reports for OHTs video Year-end communications and thank you Upcoming events including new ECHO sessions […]
QI in Action eBulletin #113: Diabetes Care in Primary Care
In this Issue: AFHTO 2021 Conference Poster Highlights Your Role In Improving The Population Health Of People At Risk Or Living With Diabetic Foot Complications Query Supports: Identify your Target Population Ontario Health Updates Quality Standards Upcoming Webinars AFHTO 2021 Conference Poster Highlights At the AFHTO 2021 Conference, we hosted an exhibit of numerous posters […]
QI in Action eBulletin #112: Ontario Structured Psychotherapy for Alcohol Use Disorder Survey, COVID-19 Guidance Updated, & more
In this Issue: Ontario Structured Psychotherapy for Alcohol Use Disorder Survey COVID-19 Guidance: Primary Care Providers in a Community Setting – UPDATED Ontario Health Updates: Upcoming events and programs related to quality standards (QS) Participate in Research Upcoming Webinars Ontario Structured Psychotherapy for Alcohol Use Disorder Survey The Ontario Structured Psychotherapy program (OSP) has been […]
QI in Action eBulletin #111: Webinars Repository, COVID-19 third dose, Provider Experience Research & Quality Standard Placemat
In this Issue: AFHTO Knowledge Translation & Exchange Webinars Repository Now Available New COVID-19 third dose vaccine eligibility search Seeking pharmacists’ input on experiences and contributions to mental health care during COVID-19 Quality Standard Placemat Upcoming Webinars AFHTO Knowledge Translation & Exchange Webinars Repository Now Available Throughout the year, AFHTO and our partners have continuously […]
QI in Action eBulletin #110: COVID-19 Vaccination Reports, Cancer Screening Summary and Quality Standard Placemat
In this Issue: COVID-19 Vaccination Reports Resuming Cancer Screening During COVID-19 Quality Standard Placemat Share your Thoughts on Addressing Patients’ Mental Health Needs as a Pharmacist Upcoming Webinars COVID-19 Vaccination Reports Currently COVID-19 Vaccination Reports are available to Primary Care Providers in a few ways that are summarized below: Health Report Manager (HRM®): As of […]
Aggregate Primary Care Vaccination Reports for Family Physicians
Dear Triad Members, Yesterday Ontario Health (OH) released a memo about accessing the COVaxON Aggregate Primary Care Vaccination Reports for family physicians working in a Patient Enrolment Model (PEM) of your rostered patients who have been vaccinated. A reminder that you do need a ONE® ID account to access the report – instructions on how […]
QI in Action eBulletin #109: Cancer Screening during the Pandemic and Onwards
In this Issue: Cancer Screening during the Pandemic and Onwards Tip Sheets for Primary Care Providers Breast Screening Cervical Screening Colorectal Cancer Screening Ontario Health’s Screening Activity Report EMR Tips to Help you Resume Cancer Screening Upcoming Webinars Cancer Screening during the Pandemic and Onwards Check out our recent Cancer Screening during the Pandemic and […]
Aggregate Primary Care Vaccination Report, Provincial Antigen Screening Program and Last Chance to Order Oxygen Saturation Monitors
Dear Triad Members, Please see below for some important information from Ontario Health. Aggregate Primary Care Vaccination Report Together with their stakeholders, Ontario Health will be providing family physicians with a new report to help you identify patients in your panel that have received a COVID-19 vaccine. Additional supports will help you to identify who […]
QI in Action eBulletin #108: COVID-19 Vaccination Data & GeriMedRisk
In this Issue: COVID-19 Vaccination Data Workflow Updates COVID-19 Vaccination Information Available via the Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR) Digital Health OHT Community of Practice (CoP) GeriMedRisk Upcoming Webinars COVID-19 Vaccination Data Workflow Updates As of May 18, 2021, and onwards, Health Report Manager (HRM) has been pushing data prospectively to physicians/nurse practitioners when their […]
QI in Action eBulletin #107: COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic Workflow and Mass Upload Tips & Tricks
In this Issue: COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic Workflow and Mass Upload Tips & Tricks Ontario Health Updates: Quality Standards (QS) Recent Research Publications Upcoming Webinars COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic Workflow and Mass Upload Tips & Tricks As teams move from pilot COVID-19 vaccination clinics to mass vaccination clinics, drive-thru vaccination clinics and in-clinic vaccinations, we […]
QI in Action eBulletin # 106: COVID-19 Vaccination Eligibility – EMR Searches for Primary Care
In this Issue: EMR Searches for Primary Care eConsult Specialty Groups Share your COVID-19 Initiatives Upcoming Webinars EMR Searches for Primary Care To support primary care with COVID-19 vaccination during Phase Two of Ontario’s roll out strategy, the team at the eHealth Centre of Excellence can provide EMR searches that enable clinicians to more efficiently […]
QI in Action eBulletin # 105: Ontario Health Submission March 2021
In this Issue: A new tool for primary care providers: Quality Standard Placemats Quality Improvement Plans – Update A Peoples’ Panel on how race and ethnicity data should be used for health data research in Ontario Upcoming Webinars Content below developed by Ontario Health A new tool for primary care providers: Quality Standard Placemats Quality […]
Bits & Pieces: conference videos and posters and more
Your Weekly News & Updates In This Issue AFHTO 2020 conference videos and posters Hybrid model of pharmacist services in a large multisite FHT Blast from the past: Data to Decisions article COVID-19 response framework and more Upcoming events regarding health promotion, diabetes and more AFHTO 2020 conference videos and posters Recordings from […]
Measuring the Patient/Client Experience with Virtual Care in Primary Care
Measuring the Patient/Client Experience with Virtual Care in Primary Care Purpose: In the last year, Ontarians attended nearly 1,000,000 virtual care visits (Ontario Telemedicine Network, 2019). Virtual care is provided through a vast number of modalities such as voice, video, teleconference, online platforms, and mobile texting (Pearl et al, 2014). While many primary care practices […]
2020 Conference Themes
Tectonic shifts: rebuilding primary care in a new world
Standardized EMR Queries
Standardized Clinical Queries Algorithm Project Value of Consistent Clinical Data 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 […]
How to Use D2D Data
Using the Quality roll-up indicator at the local level in your team Consider the impact of missing data. If your team did not submit data for all 14 of the indicators included in the calculation, values for the missing data were estimated randomly to allow you to get a score for the quality roll-up indicator. […]
Moving beyond measurement to improvement: How can we do that?
Now, more than ever, we need to show the value of team-based primary care. Your team can help by sharing your stories via AFHTO’s QI enablers study. AFHTO members have gained the respect of many through their high and ongoing participation in D2D. It is not enough to just measure, though. The next step is […]
Information to Action
Information to Action is a collection of resources and tools that teams can use to start improving the quality of care they deliver now. Through Information to Action, we will provide dedicated support to teams interested in using the momentum of D2D to move from measurement to improvement. It is also meant to teach us what […]
Participate in the QI Enablers Study
Five iterations of D2D data show that some teams tend to improve more over time compared to others. AFHTO members want to know what some of the “tricks of the improvement trade” are so they can try them out in their own teams. This QI enablers study is aimed at learning more about what makes […]
Individualized HbA1c Targets
Why? Better care for patients with diabetes Standardized HbA1C targets do not take into account the complexity and diversity of our patient populations. Even targets that vary by age may not be sufficiently flexible; for example, a frail elderly person should have a higher target than a relatively robust person, even if their age is […]
Diabetes Care
Primary care teams are doing better than most in diabetes management. And what’s more, we’re getting better faster than most. This might not be that surprising to AFHTO members, almost all of whom have well-developed diabetes programs. What might be a bit of a shock is how far we have yet to go. While about 60% of patients with diabetes might […]
Getting started on a CHF registry
AFHTO has developed a standardized query to help you build a chronic disease registry for patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) in your EMR. A chronic disease registry is an important step towards identifying – and ultimately correcting – gaps in care. The instructions below will help you get started. Why CHF? Congestive heart failure […]
Medication reconciliation
Interpretive Notes Data Quality Actions Potential Actions Related to Quality of Care Information on this indicator related to D2D 3.0 can be found here. For technical notes, please see page 45 of the Data Dictionary. Interpretive Notes Tips to help you understand the data and put it in context. Data Quality Actions Tips to help […]
Looking beyond measurement to improvement in interprofessional care: focus groups with IHPs
In January and February of 2016, we conducted a series of focus groups with AFHTO-member Interprofessional Health Care Providers (IHPs) about what you need in order to get better at what you do – and about how we can get better at helping you with that. We heard a lot of great information from these […]
Getting started with a registry for patients with depression
Get even better at tracking how well your patients with depression are doing. You can use the EMR tools shown below to get even better at tracking how well your patients with depression are doing. Why do we need to do better? Depression affects about 5% of adults in Canada each year and double that […]
Higher quality care linked to lower healthcare costs
The biggest news coming out of D2D 3.0 is the concrete data that higher quality comprehensive, patient-centered care is related to lower healthcare costs. Data to Decisions (D2D) is making an impact well beyond what it means to individual teams. In addition to showing teams how they compare to their peers, D2D is making it easier […]
Diabetes – Potential actions related to processes of care
Assuming you have established that the data are good enough to direct action AND that improving performance in this area is a priority for your team, you may wish to discuss the following options with your clinical leaders, Quality Improvement committees, team staff and/or patients: Discuss with your team how adding IHPs to the team […]
Primary Care Practice Reports available for FHT Executive Directors
Health Quality Ontario has informed us they are launching team-level access to ICES data for Executive Directors. There is also the possibility of using them to access data for D2D. Discussions are underway to confirm this possibility which will make it that much easier for your team to contribute data to D2D 3.0. The consent […]
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 […]
How are teams using data to improve?
Using data to improve can be as simple as starting a conversation. Those conversations can lead to all kinds of ways to improve. Maybe the improvements are first about getting better access to your data or cleaning up your EMR data. All these improvements eventually lead to better care. Some of the ways teams are […]
AFHTO 2014 Conference: Theme 6 – Using data to improve transitions of care and care coordination
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 […]
AFHTO Conference 2013 Poster Displays
Theme 1 – Leadership and governance for quality 1 The Role of an Interprofessional, Cross-Sectoral Planning and Priorities Committee in the Successful Function and Evolution of an FHT Theme 2 – Using data to improve care 2 Using EMR as a partner: Can an EMR system make you smarter about Diabetes care? 3 […]
Advancing use of data and measurement in FHTs
This is an update for AFHTO members on activities to advance use of data and measurement in FHTs (scroll below for more information): Dr. Rick Glazier, Lead Scientist in ICES Primary Care and Population Health Program, joins AFHTO board AFHTO recruitment is underway for a QIDSS Project Manager AFHTO to establish QIDSS Steering Committee Status of […]
Cancer Screening – Quality Improvement Toolkit
Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) has developed a Cancer Screening Toolkit to help FHTs develop cancer screening quality improvement plans. This toolkit will assist FHTs in planning, implementing, monitoring and reporting on improvements in colorectal, cervical and breast cancer screening. Tools include: Cancer Screening Sample Timeline, Instructions for developing your QIP based on the Plan, Do, […]
Primary Care Metrics now available on the Health Data Branch Portal
Please see the message below from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care regarding primary care data to support development of your Quality Improvement Plans: The Ministry has provided data for several primary care metrics. This data will support development and planning for Quality Improvement Plans and other quality initiatives. Important information on how […]
Update on Ministry initiatives to promote and support quality in primary care
“Faster access and a stronger link to family health care” is one of three key planks in Ontario’s Action Plan for Health Care. To do this, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has intensified focus on improving quality in this sector. Here is an overview and update on Ministry and related initiatives to promote […]
AFHTO 2012 Conference – Access and Capacity
The following presentations were made at the conference under this theme: Do inter-professional practices have a higher capacity to care for patients? The effect of panel size on quality of care across primary care models How do FHTs compare? Characterizing family health teams and their performance in Ontario Capacity of Care in the Family Health […]
Information to Action – CLONE
Information to Action is a collection of resources and tools that teams can use to start improving the quality of care they deliver now. Through Information to Action, we will provide dedicated support to teams interested in using the momentum of D2D to move from measurement to improvement. It is also meant to teach us what […]