Research

2007 Spring Seed Funding Competition : Project Profile Return to Seed Grant page

 

Clinic Patient Management Systems Designed for Preventive Care - Can They be Used to Keep Ontario Primary Care Clinicians Up to Date?

Lead Investigator:

Ann McKibbon, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Team:

  • Rolf Sebaldt, Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology & Clinical Pharmacology
  • Norm Archer, Management Science & Information Systems
  • R. Brian Haynes, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Clinicians need to digest information as it is published to keep current. Knowing when and how to change practice is a complex process that involves research, clinicians, administrators and policy makers. Multiple factors contribute to efficient application of new knowledge. Our proposal addresses the first step in the process of changing behaviours: How to effectively and efficiently alert primary care physicians (PCPs) to information in original studies and systematic reviews that include results with high potential to affect the care the PCPs provide. The goal of this submission is to provide data and infrastructure that will address three questions:

· Will PCPs and nurses working with a patient management system (P-PROMPT) who are alerted to newly-published high-quality studies, review articles, and practice guidelines access them?

· Are the clinicians selective in what they access in relation to preferred clinical topics?

· Will PCPs increase their knowledge or make changes in their practice based on the information in these articles?

P-PROMPT (Provider-Patient Reminders in Ontario Multi-strategy Prevention) developed by Sebaldt is a unique patient management system designed to support routine patient care. Its goal is to gather audit data from external sources on preventive screening such as mammographies and interventions such as child vaccinations. Compliance data are fed back iteratively to providers who act on deficiencies. The system verifies compliance with provincial guidelines which in turn leads to performance bonuses for clinicians.