A value-based comparison of the management of ambulatory respiratory diseases in walk-in clinics, primary care practices, and emergency departments : protocol for a multicenter prospective cohort study

Background: In Canada, 30%-60% of patients presenting to emergency departments are ambulatory. This category has been labeled as a source of emergency department overuse. Acting on the presumption that primary care practices and walk-in clinics offer equivalent care at a lower cost, governments have invested massively in improving access to these alternative settings in the hope that patients would present there instead when possible, thereby reducing the load on emergency departments. Data in support of this approach remain scarce and equivocal. Objective: The aim of this study is to compare the value of care received in emergency departments, walk-in clinics, and primary care practices by ambulatory patients with upper respiratory tract infection, sinusitis, otitis media, tonsillitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, influenza-like illness, pneumonia, acute asthma, or acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Methods: A multicenter prospective cohort study will be performed in Ontario and Québec. In phase 1, a time-driven activity-based costing method will be applied at each of the 15 study sites. This method uses time as a cost driver to allocate direct costs (eg, medication), consumable expenditures (eg, needles), overhead costs (eg, building maintenance), and physician charges to patient care. Thus, the cost of a care episode will be proportional to the time spent receiving the care. At the end of this phase, a list of care process costs will be generated and used to calculate the cost of each consultation during phase 2, in which a prospective cohort of patients will be monitored to compare the care received in each setting. Patients aged 18 years and older, ambulatory throughout the care episode, and discharged to home with one of the aforementioned targeted diagnoses will be considered. The estimated sample size is 1485 patients. The 3 types of care settings will be compared on the basis of primary outcomes in terms of the proportion of return visits to any site 3 and 7 days after the initial visit and the mean cost of care. The secondary outcomes measured will include scores on patient-reported outcome and experience measures and mean costs borne wholly by patients. We will use multilevel generalized linear models to compare the care settings and an overlap weights approach to adjust for confounding factors related to age, sex, gender, ethnicity, comorbidities, registration with a family physician, socioeconomic status, and severity of illness. Results: Phase 1 will begin in 2021 and phase 2, in 2023. The results will be available in 2025. Conclusions: The end point of our program will be for deciders, patients, and care providers to be able to determine the most appropriate care setting for the management of ambulatory emergency respiratory conditions, based on the quality and cost of care associated with each alternative

Évaluation de la qualité des soins dans les unités d’urgence rurales du Québec

Depuis les années 90, la population rurale au Québec, qui représente 20% de la population, présente des difficultés à accéder à des soins de qualité, malgré le fait que la loi canadienne exige « un accès raisonnable » aux services de santé. Par ailleurs, les gouvernements, les chercheurs et les organismes de financement s’intéressent de plus en plus à la performance du système de santé, depuis ce s dernières années, afin de mieux comprendre la valeur de la croissance des dépenses de santé. Les deux objectifs de ce travail consistent à recenser les indicateurs de qualité de soins en médecine d’urgence décrits dans la littérature et d’évaluer la faisabilité de mesurer les indicateurs de qualité de Schull et al. (2011) dans les unités d’urgence rurales du Québec. Pour répondre à ces deux objectifs, une revue systématique a été menée selon la méthodologie du Handbook Cochrane mise en relation avec une étude descriptive menée dans 19 urgences rurales du Québec par des professionnels archivistes qui ont mesuré 27 indicateurs de qualité selon une procédure standardisée à l’aide d’un guide explicatif et d’un fichier de collecte Excel, de juin à décembre 2013. La revue systématique a proposé une classification des indicateurs de qualité de soins selon un cadre conceptuel reconnu dans le domaine de la santé, le modèle de Donabedian, afin d’aboutir à une meilleure visualisation, compréhension et appréhension pour leur utilisation pratique. Par ailleurs, l’étude descriptive a montré que les indicateurs de Schull et al. (2011) n’étaient pas mesurables, en totalité, dans les unités d’urgence rurales du Québec, tels qu’ils sont actuellement définis

Implementation model for a national learning health system (IMPLEMENT-National LHS): a concept analysis and systematic review protocol

Introduction Despite efforts and repeated calls to improve the organisation and quality of healthcare and services, and in view of the many challenges facing health systems, the results and capacity to adapt and integrate innovations and new knowledge remain suboptimal. Learning health systems (LHS) may be an effective model to accelerate the application of research for real quality improvement in healthcare. However, while recognising the enormous potential of LHS, the literature suggests the model remains more of an aspiration than a reality.Methods and analysis To reach a fine understanding of the implementation of the concepts involved in LHS, we will use a hybrid method which combines concept analyses with systematic review methodology. We will use a two-step analysis, a content analysis to analyse the definitions, uses and attributes of the concept and a systematic review to analyse the concept’s implementation mechanisms. We will search eight databases and grey literature and present a broad synthesis of the available evidence regarding design, implementation and evaluation of LHS in a multilevel perspective. We will follow the latest Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis statement for conducting and reporting a systematic review. Two reviewers will independently screen the titles and abstracts against the eligibility criteria followed by full-text screening of potentially relevant articles for final inclusion decision. Conflicts will be resolved with a senior author. We will include published primary studies that use qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. The assessment of risk of bias will be made using the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool.Ethics and dissemination This systematic review is exempt from ethics approval. The results formulated will highlight evidence-based interventions that support the implementation of a national LHS. They will be of particular interest to decision makers, researchers, managers, clinicians and patients allowing finally to implement the promising proposal of LHSs at national scale.PROSPERO registration number CRD42023393565

Clinical Integration of Digital Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Primary Health Care for Chronic Disease Management: Protocol for a Systematic Review

BackgroundHealth measurement guides policies and health care decisions are necessary to describe and attain the quintuple aim of improving patient experience, population health, care team well-being, health care costs, and equity. In the primary care setting, patient-reported outcome measurement allows outcome comparisons within and across settings and helps improve the clinical management of patients. However, these digital patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are still not adapted to the clinical context of primary health care, which is an indication of the complexity of integrating these tools in this context. We must then gather evidence of their impact on chronic disease management in primary health care and understand the characteristics of effective implementation. ObjectiveWe will conduct a systematic review to identify and assess the impact of electronic PROMs (ePROMs) implementation in primary health care for chronic disease management. Our specific objectives are to (1) determine the impact of ePROMs in primary health care for chronic disease management and (2) compare and contrast characteristics of effective ePROMs’ implementation strategies. MethodsWe will conduct a systematic review of the literature in accordance with the guidelines of the Cochrane Methods Group and in compliance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines for its reporting. A specific search strategy was developed for relevant databases to identify studies. Two reviewers will independently apply the inclusion criteria using full texts and will extract the data. We will use a 2-phase sequential mixed methods synthesis design by conducting a qualitative synthesis first, and use its results to perform a quantitative synthesis. ResultsThis study was initiated in June 2022 by assembling the research team and the knowledge transfer committee. The preliminary search strategy will be developed and completed in September 2022. The main search strategy, data collection, study selection, and application of inclusion criteria were completed between October and December 2022. ConclusionsResults from this review will help support implementation efforts to accelerate innovations and digital adoption for primary health care and will be relevant for improving clinical management of chronic diseases and health care services and policies. Trial RegistrationPROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42022333513; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=333513 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/4815