OntarioMD’s EMR: Every Step Conference in Toronto on September 28, 2017 will feature 25 seminars designed to inspire and educate clinicians on how to get more benefits from their EMR. These sessions have been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s Ontario Chapter for up to 7.5 Mainpro+ credits.
Evaluating a Point-of-Care Electronic Asthma Management System
This post was contributed by Dr. Samir Gupta and Courtney Price.
In The Electronic Asthma Management System (eAMS): Effects of a New EMR Tool for Asthma Care, Dr. Samir Gupta will look at the impact of eAMS, an EMR-integrated decision support tool, on asthma management.
Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in Canada, affecting more than 2 million Canadians. The primary goal of asthma management is to obtain good control of the disease. With the right disease management, we know that most patients can live symptom-free. However, research shows that over half of patients with asthma actually have poor control. The question is, why? Dr. Gupta, clinician-scientist and respirologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, aims to answer this question. by focusing on innovative ways to bring evidence into practice through knowledge translation tools.
In the area of asthma management, three key care practices are recommended: assess a patient’s asthma control at every visit; adjust medications according to this level of control; and provide patients with a written asthma action plan (AAP), which is a self-management tool that empowers patients to transiently intensify therapy for asthma worsening, and explains when to seek help. AAPs are known to reduce hospitalizations, ER visits, absenteeism and symptoms, and to improve quality of life.
To support the implementation of these guidelines into primary care settings – where the majority of asthma patients are seen – the research team developed an electronic tool called eAMS, which leverages information entered by patients on a pre-visit electronic questionnaire to provide physicians with their patients’ asthma control level, evidence-based guidance regarding how to adjust medications, and a pre-filled AAP. All of these functions are seamlessly integrated to the existing EMR system at the point of care.
Dr. Gupta’s presentation will highlight the results of a one-year pilot study of the tool, during which asthma control assessment increased from 2% to 30%, and the proportion of patients who received AAPs increased from 0% to 25%. Dr. Gupta will share design, functionality and evaluation of the eAMS tool with conference attendees, and looks forward to discussion with other health care providers and digital health stakeholders around how to further improve the tool.
Putting the Brakes on Breaks Bone Health Workbook
This post was contributed by Dr. Therese Hodgson and Pascal Hodgson
In their session, Putting the Brakes on Breaks Bone Health Workbook, OntarioMD Peer Leader Dr. Therese Hodgson and data coordinator Pascal Hodgson will review how EMR tools and resources can help achieve best practices in bone health. These best practices are grouped into three pillars: Falls Prevention, Osteoporosis Identification, and Management and Post Fracture Care. The session will feature YouTube videos and links to evidence-based resources, and cover key topics including: Best Practices, Needs Assessment, Logic Program Module, EMR Tools and Resources, and Examples. The Logic module allows users to gain an understanding of how to develop a program and offers templates for each step. The Bone Health EMR modules can be incorporated into the EMR as tools without a formal program allowing group or single practices to implement bone health activities. One example is the Reminder module that populates the reminder box based on age, sex, date of last Bone Mineral Density (BMD), BMD risk score, history of family hip fracture and presence of fragility fracture.
