The ePRO team has been working closely with our partners at the Family Health Teams over the past few weeks to recruit patients to our study. We started with Recruitment Kick-Off meetings with our sites to identify the recruitment strategy that works best for them and their patients. Our site leads and their teams have been working diligently identifying eligible patients from their EMRs and then engaging in first contact. We’re already getting some great buzz amongst patients at some sites and we have a great team of Coordinators, Assistants and Trainees who are contacting individuals to tell them all about ePRO.
A key learning for us in this process is the challenge in identifying older adults with complex care needs across diverse Family Health Teams. The challenge of identifying complex care patients is a pervasive issue not only in research, but also in care delivery as evidenced by the challenges experienced by Ontario’s Health Links in identifying a similar patient population. In their article in Health Affairs, Colbert and Ganguli (2016) recommend a hybrid approach to identifying patients with complex care needs, which includes using data, as well as provider AND patient insights. Provider and patient insight is shown to be an effective method of patient identification, as these individuals offer insights that cannot be captured with big data. For the ePRO trial we have adopted this recommended hybrid approach, starting with a standardized set of eligibility criteria we use to first identify patients in practice EMRs. However, data from one EMR to the next can look quite different, which limits how granular we can be with our searches. We thus begin with a broader search for patients 60 and over, with 2 or more chronic conditions, and 10 or more visits to the practice in the previous 12 months. Once searches are extracted, the providers in the study look over lists to ensure the patients on the list do indeed represent an individual with complex care needs. We also include the opportunity for patient self-identification using things like posters to inform patients and family caregivers. We are excited to be moving along with recruitment towards our study start date of October 1st 2017.
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AuthorKeeping you up to date on our thoughts and efforts as we work to improve the management of complex chronic disease and disability through electronic health innovations. ArchivesCategories |