Rapides établissement et examen effectués en collaboration des compétences requises dans les programmes de résidence en médecine familiale durant la pandémie de la COVID-19

Background: In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted competency-based medical education in Family Medicine programs across Canada. Faculty and residents identified a need for clear, relevant, and specific competencies to frame teaching, learning, supervision and feedback during the pandemic. Methods: A rapid, iterative, educational quality improvement process was launched. Phase 1 involved experienced educators defining gaps in our program’s existing competency-database, reviewing emerging public health and regulatory guidelines, and drafting competencies. Phase 2 involved translation, member-checking, and anonymous feedback and editing of draft competencies by residents and other educational leaders. Phase 3 involved wider dissemination, collaborative editing and feedback from residents and faculty throughout the department. Results: A total of 44 physicians including residents and faculty from multiple contexts provided detailed feedback, review, and editing of an ultimate list of 33 competencies organized by CanMEDS-FM roles. Broad agreement was obtained that the competencies form reasonable learning outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: These competencies represent learning objectives reflecting the initial educational mindsets of a wide range of teachers and learners experiencing a global pandemic. The project illustrates a novel collaboration across educational portfolios as a rapid educational response to a public health crisis

Patient, informal caregiver and care provider acceptance of a hospital in the home program in Ontario, Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hospital in the home programs have been implemented in several countries and have been shown to be safe substitutions (alternatives) to in-patient hospitalization. These programs may offer a solution to the increasing demands made on tertiary care facilities and to surge capacity. We investigated the acceptance of this type of care provision with nurse practitioners as the designated principal home care providers in a family medicine program in a large Canadian urban setting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Patients requiring hospitalization to the family medicine service ward, for any diagnosis, who met selection criteria, were invited to enter the hospital in the home program as an alternative to admission. Participants in the hospital in the home program, their caregivers, and the physicians responsible for their care were surveyed about their perceptions of the program. Nurse practitioners, who provided care, were surveyed and interviewed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ten percent (104) of admissions to the ward were screened, and 37 patients participated in 44 home hospital admissions. Twenty nine patient, 17 caregiver and 38 provider surveys were completed. Most patients (88%–100%) and caregivers (92%–100%) reported high satisfaction levels with various aspects of health service delivery. However, a significant proportion in both groups stated that they would select to be treated in-hospital should the need arise again. This was usually due to fears about the safety of the program. Physicians (98%–100%) and nurse practitioners also rated the program highly. The program had virtually no negative impact on the physician workload. However nurse practitioners felt that the program did not utilize their full expertise.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Provision of hospital level care in the home is well received by patients, their caregivers and health care providers. As a new program, investment in patient education about program safety may be necessary to ensure its long term success. A small proportion of hospital admissions were screened for this program. Appropriate dissemination of program information to family physicians should help buy-in and participation. Nurse practitioners' skills may not be optimally utilized in this setting.</p

GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare.

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits

A Method of Assessment of Reliability of Coding Clinical terms to ICD-10 and ICPC Using ENCODE-FMΩ, a Primary Care Controlled Clinical Terminology

Background: Data entry into electronic medical records remains a barrier to their use in primary care. One of the difficulties in data recording has been the use of terminologies unsuited to clinical data entry by physicians. Canada has chosen ICD-10 as its standard of classification of medical diagnoses and the World Organization of Family Doctors created and uses ICPC-2. In this study, we tested a clinical terminology for reliability of classification. ICD-10 is not intended to be used by clinicians as care is given, and ICPC is too small to be useful to follow patients in a clinical record. ENCODE-FMΩ is a clinical terminology specifically designed to overcome these limitations and provide both clinical specificity of health problems for patient care, and data aggregation for statistics and research. This study was intended both to test the reliability of data entry using ENCODE-FMΩ and to serve as a model methodology for testing vocabularies in general. Method: Terms for "reason for encounter" taken from a random selection of encounter forms in family practice were coded by five different physician coders using a computerised search engine for ENCODE-FMΩ. Intraclass correlations were calculated to see how well clinical data grouped to ICD-10 and ICPC. Results: Use of the ENCODE-FMΩ clinical terminology resulted in highly reliable data aggregation to the standard international classifications ICD-10 and ICPC. Intraclass correlations were .87 (p<.001) and .85 (p<.001). Interpretation: The study shows that the method of assessment is both simple and acceptable. ENCODE-FMΩ can be used reliably for data entry into an electronic medical record, and analysis of coding errors suggests that direct data entry by care providers would be more reliable than third party coding. Physician coders prefer simple partial word searches

Early medical treatment of gender dysphoria: Baseline characteristics of a UK cohort beginning early intervention

Aims: To describe characteristics of patients referred early (<16 yrs) medical treatment for gender dysphoria (GD). GD is a rare condition in which individuals experience clinically significant distress due to incongruence between their psychological perception of, and their natally assigned, sex. Methods: We collected data prospectively on all patients referred from May 2010––July 2014 for early pubertal suppression using gonadotropin – releasing hormone analogue (GnRHa) therapy. Results: 61 young people (34 natal males; 55.7%) were referred for early intervention to the national GD service endocrine liaison clinic at mean age of 13.1 years (range 9.8–15.3). All patients had a karyotype consistent with their natal sex. More natal males were in early puberty (32.4% Tanner 1/2; n = 11) than natal females (11.1% Tanner 1/2; n = 3). Baseline endocrinology and physical examination were normal for natal sex in all patients. All females who had standard synacthen tests to exclude adrenal dysfunction (77.8%; n = 21) had normal cortisol and 17OHP. 38.2% (n = 13) males had low bone mineral density compared with 11.1% of females (n = 3). 50 patients (81.9%) elected to receive GnRHa following full explanation and informed consent at Tanner stage 3, following international guidelines. GnRHa could not be commenced immediately if pre-pubertal (10/61), having very low bone mineral density (3/61) or low body mass index (BMI) (2/61). All who began GnRHa achieved full gonadatropin suppression. No young people withdrew from GnRHa treatment in the first 2 years. Many GPs were unwilling to prescribe GnRHa (56.0%; n = 28/50) therefore local hospitals (8.0%; n = 4) or the tertiary centre (36.0%; n = 18) issued prescriptions. Conclusion: Early medical intervention in GD with GnRH suppression of puberty is effective and well–tolerated. Assessment of growth, bone health and psychological outcomes will be important to assess the medium-and long-term safety and effectiveness of early intervention for GD