September 2024

From the Primary Care Alliance

I would like to welcome you back from summer vacations and I hope you had an opportunity to rest and enjoy some relaxation. As the leaves change colour and temperatures cool outside, our fall activities are heating up again!

I am particularly excited about the Team Primary Care Alberta (TPCA) conference, which will be coming up October 5. Presented by the Alberta College of Family Physicians, in collaboration with the Coalition for Primary Health Care, the TPCA Forum brings together interdisciplinary health care leaders motivated to co-design, build, and commit to the supports and frameworks to optimize team-based primary care. It will be a unique opportunity to collaborate and further explore team-based care. We will share any outcomes with you in the next newsletter. 

PCA members have been engaged this summer in developing a statement of shared understanding of the physician role in team-based care. We expect to finalize that document soon and look forward to sharing it with you.   

I would also take a moment to recognize our colleagues who work in Jasper and other communities that have been impacted by the forest fires this past season. Your dedication to patient care in the face of such adversity is commendable. Thank you. 

In the spirit of reconciliation, we stand in unity with our First Nations as we commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Dr. Ema Gye
Chair
Primary Care Alliance

Register now for the PCN Pain Rounds! 

Presented by the Calgary and Area Primary Care Networks, PCN Pain Rounds is a grand rounds-style webinar series for family doctors and multidisciplinary team members interested in improving the care they provide to people with pain.
Registration for one (or all six sessions) is free and grants you access to watch/rewatch session content on demand! Up next is "Neurodiversity and Pain" on Thursday, November 14th. 

Need help with PPIP requirements? We’ve got a webinar for that!

Alberta Medical Association - Accelerating Change Transformation Team (AMA-ACTT) webinars can help you meet your CPSA Physician Practice Improvement Program requirements. Visit the website and choose from a number of topics, some with multiple date and time options. 

New AMA website launched!

If you have visited the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) website in the past few weeks you will have noticed significant changes! The brand-new site has new features to enhance your experience including a search engine that keeps learning as time passes. Additionally, AMA-Accelerating Change Transformation Team (ACTT) content has been merged with the new site and you will find ACTT supports and resources fully integrated throughout.

New partnership aims to further health system innovation in Alberta 

The Alberta-based Canadian non-profit, Health Cities, is partnering with the Accelerating Change Transformation Team (ACTT) at the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) to connect Alberta’s public health care system with cutting-edge health solutions. 

Other news

PCCM Panel Prep - Take Control of Your Panel Size: Part 2

Are you already live on Community Information Integration/Central Patient Attachment Registry (CII/CPAR) but your PMSP panel size was still lower than expected?  The cause might be your EMR settings or processes!
Join Dr. Heidi Fell and the Alberta Medical Association - Accelerating Change Transformation Team (AMA-ACTT) for Part 2 of this webinar series, which will focus on EMR-specific steps that physicians and teams can take to ensure their EMR panel is being fully uploaded to CII/CPAR. Ensuring your panel size is accurate is also a great way to prepare for the launch of the new funding model (PCCM), which has a panel-based payment component. This webinar is intended for physicians who are live on CII/CPAR or in the process of getting live. If you are still considering joining CII/CPAR you may want to watch the recording of Part 1 of this series before attending Part 2. 
There are two options. The content repeats so you only need attend one session. 
October 15, 12:00 -1:30 p.m.
October 16, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Register today!

HQCA survey can help meet PPIP requirements

The Health Quality Council of Alberta’s (HQCA) Primary Care Patient Experience Survey can help you meet your Physician Practice Improvement Program (PPIP) personal development requirements.
Wondering what your patients are thinking? Are their needs being met? The HQCA has been offering a Primary Care Patient Experience Survey for years – and recently made a few important updates.
The survey is shorter, with just 25 core questions, and measures relevant patient-centred medical home topics including access, coordination, and self-management. 
Visit HQCA primary care patient survey to see how easy it is to get started on this free survey at your clinic, and simultaneously meet your PPIP personal development requirement.

Optimizing Patient Access webinar – October 30

Excessive workload can lead to physician burnout and restricted patient access to care. At this virtual webinar, two family physicians will share their personal experience with addressing access challenges in their practice. Supported by their QI team, Dr. Colleen Gay Johnston and Dr. Candy Marcet implemented workflow changes that improved both their work-life balance and continuity of patient care. Presented by the Physician Learning Program and the Edmonton Southside Primary Care Network, the Optimizing Patient Access: Personal Experience and Strategies from Physicians in Primary Care webinar takes place October 30 from 12:15 to 1:00 p.m. Register.

Are you interested in shared care planning with complex patients?

A multi-partnered project led by the University of Alberta is seeking primary care physicians across Alberta to partner with them to use their care planning tools with patients living with advanced stage chronic disease. Patients from your panel are identified for you as the one:carepath care plan template is in all provincial EMRs and auto-populates from a patient’s chart. There are funds to support this work. 
For more information contact Lynn Toon or Tanya Barber.

Connect Care access not required for referrals to AHS

You may be receiving referral communications and summative notes from AHS asking you to view information in Connect Care. AHS understands this is a problem because most community providers do not have access to Connect Care. Access to Connect Care is not required to make referrals to AHS and community providers should not be asked to view documents in Connect Care. If you receive the foregoing communication, email ccproviderbridge@ahs.ca. Read more information.

Refreshed Community Provider Resource Centre now live

Visit the refreshed Community Provider Resource Centre and find a wide range of resources to keep you up to date on community care topics, including:

• Chronic disease management 
• Pathways
• Public health updates
• Women’s health information … and much more.

The Community Provider Resource Centre is a consolidation of two former pages, the PHC Resource Centre and the Community Provider Information page, which have now been retired.
If you have any questions or feedback on the new site, email PHC@AHS.ca.

Join NAPCReN and contribute to CPCSSN

If you practice in central and northern Alberta, the Northern Alberta Primary Care Learning & Research Network (NAPCReN) invites you to join them. NAPCReN is a family physician and multidisciplinary collaboration of researchers and clinicians. It is one of the primary care research networks from across Canada that contributes data to the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN), a multi-disease electronic medical record-based surveillance system. 

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