As summer approaches, we’d like to share with you some exciting new developments with our ongoing primary care research projects, an update from the Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN), and leadership and staff changes within the BC Primary Health Care Research Network (BC-PHCRN) team!

In This Update

Research Activity Updates
Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN) Update
BC-PHCRN Leadership and Staff Changes
About BC-PHCRN

Research Activity Updates

OECD Patient Reported Indicators Survey (PaRIS) – Recruitment is Open!

Recruitment for the OECD PaRIS (Patient Reported Indicator Survey) project has officially opened! The OECD PaRIS is a pan-Canadian project seeking to measure experience and outcomes of primary health care services. The goal of this work is to identify what matters most to patients, specifically those experiencing chronic conditions, when engaging with primary health care services to further inform a more patient-centred practice across Canada. The BC-PHCRN is looking to recruit 15 practices in BC.

The PaRIS project includes two parts, a practice survey and a patient survey. The practice survey, completed by a clinician or their designate (someone who is knowledgeable about the practice), takes approximately 10-20 minutes to complete. In addition, clinicians (or designates) will receive support from research staff on how to securely send patients their invitation letter and patient survey (approximately 1-2 hours of their time). The patient survey, which is distributed to 75 patients by the participating practice, will take 30-45 minutes to complete.

Participating primary care practices will receive a token of appreciation as well as a personalized report about their aggregated patient experiences, including the overall aggregated Canadian data. This offers each practice knowledge about patient experiences with their care and contributes to the quality of Canada’s healthcare system.

If you are a primary care practice interested in participating, please email the Research Coordinator, Lanting Cheng (lanting.cheng@ubc.ca) for eligibility and survey information. More information about this international survey can be found on the study website.

SPIDER – A research and quality improvement collaboration supporting practices in improving care for complex older patients with polypharmacy

The Structured Process Informed by Data, Evidence and Research (SPIDER) is a research and quality improvement project. This pan-Canadian project focuses on the risk polypharmacy poses to older adults (aged 65 years and older) and the corresponding impact it has on the health care system in Canada. The study uses a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial, as opposed to usual care, in reducing potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIPs). BC-PHCRN is looking to recruit 14 practices (2+ physicians per practice) and a proportion of their patients. Provider participation will require up to 25 hours and patient participation will require 20-60 minutes of their time.

If you are interested in participating in this study, please contact the Research Lead, Dr. Rubee Dev (rubee.dev@ubc.ca) or the Research Coordinator, Lanting Cheng (lanting.cheng@ubc.ca).

Southern Alberta Primary Care Research Network (SAPCReN) Evaluation of Classification Systems – Recruitment Ongoing

Recruitment opened in early June 2023 and is ongoing for the Southern Alberta Primary Care Research Network (SAPCReN) evaluation of disease classification systems in primary care. Adopting a new classification system takes significant time and resources and is impacted by user acceptance. To understand acceptability and the practical use of a new classification system (such as ICD-11 or International Classification of Primary Care version 3 (ICPC-3)), family physicians are invited to participate in a coding exercise and survey (30-60 minute total time commitment) to inform the use and perception of these systems for activities such as clinical documentation and billing. The data will ultimately inform suitability of coding systems for family medicine and identify gaps that could be addressed in the future.

If you are interested in participating, please email info@spor-bcphcrn.ca or follow the link to complete the coding exercise: https://physiciancoding.ca/bc-phcrn/start

Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN) Update

The CPCRN is composed of approximately 21 provincial practice-based research and learning networks (PBRLNs). BC-PHCRN is one of those provincial nodes.

The CPCRN Learning Series wrapped up their final session with an engaging panelist presentation on Assessing Scalability of the ACHRU Community Partnership Program: An Intervention for Older Adults with Diabetes and Multiple Chronic Conditions. If you missed this session, the recording and slide deck will be available on the CPCRN website. Learning sessions have paused for July and August but will pick up in September 2023. Please watch the CPCRN news and events page for more detail. Interested members can also listen to the CPCRN podcast available on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and Google Podcasts (among other streaming platforms).

We encourage you to join the CPCRN newsletter mailing list to learn more about their vision and mission, and stay up to date with activities happening across the network! In addition, CPCRN has created a community of practice hosted on LinkedIn. This online community will be a place for vibrant conversations about primary care, patient-oriented research, policy, and the like. We encourage you to join to share your knowledge, ask questions, participate in discussions, and become an integral part of this community! Click here to request to join.

BC-PHCRN Leadership and Staff Changes

We have a few leadership changes and members we’d like to introduce to you. First, we warmly welcome Dr. Rubee Dev, Assistant Professor of Global Health & Primary Health Care Nursing at the UBC School of Nursing, as the Principal Investigator and Co-Lead of BC-PHCRN and Co-Director of Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (BC-CPCSSN). Dr. Dev’s research focuses on global health, maternal and child health, and improving care delivery in primary health care settings.

We also welcome Dr. Nathaniel Hawkins, Clinical Associate Professor and Cardiologist at UBC, as the Co-Lead of the BC-PHCRN. Dr. Hawkins is Medical Lead for Quality and Research at Cardiac Services BC and Director of Research for the UBC Division of Cardiology. His research examines cardiovascular outcomes, health services, and comorbidities in patients with heart failure, arrhythmia, and pulmonary disease. He is Co-Principal Investigator for the MAPLE-CHF and international SYMPHONY heart failure screening trial and member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canadian Heart Function Alliance. We are excited to have his unique perspective to inform and guide the projects occurring within BC-PHCRN.

Finally, we welcome Shelby Elkes, who has joined our team as the BC-PHCRN Network Manager. Shelby (M.A. Gerontology) has worked for UBC in research-intensive roles for the past six years, and brings with her a wealth of knowledge in research management and development. Her research focused on psychosocial impacts, built environment, and promising practice supports for older adults aging in the right place. She is looking forward to connecting with the primary health care community to support the vision, initiatives, and engagement in BC-PHCRN projects.

You can read more about the BC-PHCRN team here.

About BC-PHCRN

The BC Primary Health Care Research Network (BC-PHCRN) is a practice-based research and learning network, part of the Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN), designed to support evidence-informed transformation of the delivery of primary and integrated health care.

The goal of the BC-PHCRN is to encourage, facilitate, and support collaborations between government, health authorities, health professionals, patients and researchers in order to improve BC’s health care delivery system. The BC-PHCRN is an open network and welcomes individuals from all sectors involved in primary health care – researchers, patients, health care providers and policy makers.

The BC arm of the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) is housed within BC-PHCRN, where we specifically reach out and work with primary care clinicians (e.g., family physicians, nurse practitioners, etc.) to provide analytic support of electronic medical record data for purposes of practice quality improvement, disease surveillance and research.

Please share this update with colleagues who you think may be interested in our activities. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions. For more information about BC-PHCRN, please visit our website at https://spor-bcphcrn.ca/ or email info@spor-bcphcrn.ca.

June 2023 BC-PHCRN Update