The latest findings are in. By gathering data and comparing it against our interventions, we found that our initiatives have positively impacted primary care.
The Centre for Effective Practice (CEP) has been supporting improvements in care across Ontario through the provision of user-friendly supports and one-on-one academic detailing service visits for primary care providers. Primary care providers report that the CEP’s tools and services are "invaluable" and that patients are receiving "better care" as a result.
Below are some of our findings about CEP clinical tools:
- The reach of our tools and resources is extensive with 23% of all Ontario family physicians and 58% of all Ontario primary care nurse practitioners using cep.health every month.
- 78% of providers surveyed reported a change in prescribing, testing/screening, non-pharmacological management of various conditions and referral patterns after using the CEP's tools and resources.
- EMR data suggests system-wide cost-savings as a result of reducing inappropriate diagnostic imaging referrals (no new referrals for low back pain imaging during 3-month post-intervention period).
Evaluation of pharmacy claims data show the following about our academic detailing service:
- 679% improvement over matched control group in reducing the opioid (morphine-equivalent) dose for their patients.
- 409% improvement over matched control group in reducing the opioid dose for their patients on high-risk opioid doses (morphine-equivalent doses >200mg/day.
- Extending these results to all detailed family physicians, the program achieved 143 additional patients being tapered off high-risk doses, and helped avoid 9 opioid-related deaths and 13 opioid associated emergency department visits for Ontarians.
During this week's webinar, Laura Desveaux and Mina Tadrous from Women's College Hospital discuss the evaluation design and results. See the full recording below.
Access the full presentations about academic detailing and our clinical tools.