On Wednesday, June 12, 2024, Drs. Rubee Dev, Sabrina Wong, Nathaniel Hawkins (co-directors of the BC Primary Health Care Research Network; BC-PHCRN) and Andrew Gibb (data manager of BC-PHCRN), along with guest speaker Dr. Daniel Ngui (family physician and medical director at Fraser Street Medical), presented on how the BC-PHCRN at UBC is building a primary care learning health system in the province.
The BC-PHCRN sits within the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Their goal is to encourage, facilitate and support collaborations between government, health authorities, health professionals, patients and researchers to prioritize patient-identified healthcare needs in primary care. Through this collaborative, pan-Canadian effort, the BC-PHCRN is focused on building a learning health system (LHS) with the intention of using data, research, quality improvement, patient and provider participation to continuously generate knowledge, improve care and deliver value within the Canadian healthcare system.
As with any LHS, data form a foundation upon which to learn and improve in order to move closer towards the Quadruple aim: better patient experiences, better provider experiences, improved health and delivery of care at a lower cost. BC-PHCRN uses patient reported experience and outcome surveys, practice surveys and electronic medical records in collaboration with primary care clinicians and practices. Participating clinicians can access their own de-identified patient data through an online dashboard, as well as compare their data to others seen at their clinic (from other providers), and their health division. BC-PHCRN also provides personalized reports; in 2022 clinicians received a personalized antibiotic prescription portrait comparing their prescribing patterns to peers in BC and across Canada. Customized reporting is also available.
In addition to quality improvement, the information can be used to generate new knowledge that informs primary care system design, practice, and policy. For example, Dr. Nathaniel Hawkins (Medical Lead for Quality and Research at Cardiac Services BC) utilized EMR data to define the prevalence, monitoring, treatment, and control of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and discovered a risk profile very similar to patients with diabetes (Hawkins, et al., 2022). The primary care data can also be linked to other provincial administrative data to understand how practice impacts medication use, healthcare utilization, and patient outcomes.
BC-PHCRN believes that primary care knowledge, clinical guidelines and care should be driven by primary care clinicians, patients and researchers to strengthen our foundation of health care. Participating in BC-PHCRN can be as minimal or as much as you like. We would welcome your participation in growing the BC-PHCRN network, advising us, informing quality improvement, contributing deidentified data, and being involved in research ranging from qualitative methodologies to randomized clinical trials.
If you are interested in staying connected with the BC-PHCRN, or CPCRN, or are a clinician interested in participating in BC-CPCSSN, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@spor-bcphcrn.ca.
If you’d like to learn more, watch the recording of the research rounds session.
References
Hawkins, N. M., Peterson, S., Ezzat, A. M., Vijh, R., Virani, S. A., Gibb, A., Mancini, G. B. J., & Wong, S. T. (2022). Control of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 19(7), 1102–1111. https://doi.org/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202104-463OC