Jan 2021
Virtual Care: Chronic Conditions
Introduction
As COVID-19 continues to spread, family physicians and primary care nurse practitioners are encouraged to provide virtual care. Use this resource to understand how virtual care can support quality chronic disease management.
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About the tool
As the first of a series of virtual care resources, the Enhancing Management of Chronic Conditions Using Virtual Care During COVID-19 helps primary care providers integrate virtual care into their workflow using a variety of modalities in order to empower patient self-management and increase clinical efficiencies across the continuity of care.
It also includes supporting documents on how to use and integrate modalities such as email and secure messaging and phone and video.
The Enhancing Management of Chronic Conditions Using Virtual Care During COVID-19 Resource and supporting documents were developed using a modified version of the Centre for Effective Practice’s integrated knowledge translation approach. Through this approach, the CEP ensures that primary care providers are engaged throughout the resource development process. Clinical leadership was provided by Dr. Payal Agarwal and Dr. Onil Bhattacharyya, along with a clinical working group and an advisory committee.
This resource was developed by the Centre for Effective Practice and University of Toronto's Department of Family and Community Medicine with collaboration from the Ontario College of Family Physicians, Nurse Practitioners' Association of Ontario, Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario, Ontario Medical Association Section for General and Family Practice, eHealth Centre of Excellence, Ontario MD and Ontario Health (OTN).
Clinical leads
Payal Agarwal
MEDICAL DIRECTOR, DIGITAL MD, CCFP, BASC
Payal is a practicing family physician in Toronto at Women's College Hospital. She looks at how emerging technologies both improve the delivery of healthcare and health science education. As an Innovation Fellow at WIHV, Payal creates and evaluates new models of virtual care, adapting successful approaches from the tech, design and start-up world. She is also a consultant for several healthcare start-ups on product design and usability.
Onil Bhattacharyya
MD, PHD
Dr. Onil Bhattacharyya is the Frigon Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research at Women's College Hospital in Toronto. Onil is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Community Medicine at University of Toronto, and the Evaluation Lead for the Institute for Health Service Solutions and Virtual Care at Women’s College. He advocates for new solutions to making evidence more meaningful to practice, including less rigid reliance on published studies, and more attention to the values, preferences and experiences of individual patients.
Clinical working group
The following clinical working group of providers helped with the development of the resource:
- Darren Larsen, MD, CCFP, MPLc (OntarioMD)
- Dominik Nowak, MD, MHSc, CCFP, CHE
- Daniel Pepe, MD, CCFP
- Chandi Chandrasena, MD, CCFP, FCFP
- Beth Cowper-Fung, NP-PHC, MN (Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario)
- Shehab Sennah (Ontario Health, OTN)
- Sara Di Gregorio (eHealth Centre of Excellence)
Advisory committee
Feedback was also provided by a committee of advisors:
- Noah Ivers, MD, PhD
- Tara Kiran, MD, MSc, CCFP, FCFP
- Daniel Pepe, MD, CCFP
- Sarah Newbery, MD, CCFP, FCFP, FRRMS
- Nicole Nitti, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP
- Anna Holland, MD, CCFP (AM)
- Mia Biondi, PhD, NP-PHC
- Jennifer Young, MD, FCFP-EM (Ontario College of Family Physicians)
- Kevin Samson, MD (Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario)
- Danika Voisin (eHealth Centre of Excellence)
- Laurie Poole, RN, MHSA (Ontario Health, OTN)
- Reza Talebi, MD, MSc (OntarioMD)
- Maurine Parzen, RN, PhD (Patient Representative)
Conflict of interest
Clinical leads received compensation for their role.
Clinical working group members received an honorarium for their participation.
Focus group and usability participants received a small token of appreciation (e.g. gift certificate).
Conflict of interest
The clinical leads received compensation for their role.
The National Advisory Committee (2022-2024) andClinical Working Group (2018) members received an honorarium for their participation.
Usability participants (family physicians and primary care nurse practitioners) received a token of appreciation for their participation (e.g., gift certificate).
Pilot testing participants (primary care physicians and primary care nurse practitioners) received an honorarium for their participation.