1. AMA - Alberta Doctors’ Digest
report to aid in determining learning needs. However,
post-discussion comments by the physicians indicated
it aided deeper reflection into the meaning of specific
information and hence gained further insights into their
practice profile. Participants reflected that the data
enabled them to learn more about their billing practices.
In turn, a few identified areas of improvement and
knowledge to change coding practices to add to the value
of future interpretations of similar data. Participation in
this project is eligible for Pearls™ Mainpro-C credits.
10 Feature
Your practice: Who knew?
The Physician Learning Program can help identify patterns
in your practice that you just might not see
You can base decisions on
factual,practical data that accurately
reflects your own practice.
I
n a perfect world, physicians could view their own
aggregated practice data at the push of a button,
sliding through analyses on an iPad while munching
through lunch. The reality, unfortunately, is much
more complex. There are few opportunities for family
physicians to access and receive feedback on clinical
information specific to their practices. Access to
resources, such as electronic medical record systems,
personnel to compile relevant reports and aid to interpret
practice information is often limited. This lack of ease
of access was the catalyst for a recent project from the
Physician Learning Program (PLP).
You and Your Patients is a unique initiative to address
the gap between a family physician’s perceptions of
his or her practice and practice-specific data that can
be found in the administrative databases. The PLP has
partnered with Alberta Health to design a series of
reports to inform family physicians about their practices,
including: patient demographics, common diagnoses,
services provided, and patient continuity. Now, instead
of relying only on personal perceptions of your practice
formed through patient encounters, conversations
with colleagues, and trends communicated at medical
conferences, you can base decisions on factual, practical
data that accurately reflects your own practice.
Family physicians were invited to voluntarily consent
to receiving a report by using mailouts, reaching out
at conferences or referrals from past participants.
Physicians were then provided their confidential reports
and invited to participate in a 60-minute discussion with
the PLP medical co-lead to interpret the report, examine
areas that were inconsistent with internal perceptions
and identify potential learning opportunities.
Continuous feedback from physicians was necessary
to assess the feasibility and utility of the data for future
editions of the report. Prior to the facilitated discussions,
few physicians strongly identified the ability for the
Veronica Lawrence, BA | Podcast and Communications Technician, PLP, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary
Evaluation of new content and format of the You and
Your Patients report is currently underway. New content
includes greater analysis on a per-facility basis, patient
emergency visits for semi-urgent and non-urgent care,
clinical risk grouping of patients and prescriptions filled
by patients. We believe that the You and Your Patients
project is a valuable learning opportunity for the whole
Alberta family physician community. For information on
the next enrollment period, please contact PLP at
www.albertaplp.ca or plp@ucalgary.ca.
The Physician Learning Program provides feedback to
physicians on their practices and identifies opportunities
for continuing professional development by analyzing their
practice-specific records from provincial databases. PLP is
located in the departments of continuing medical education
at the universities of Alberta and Calgary.