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Quality in Family Practice
Quality in Family Practice is a project of the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. All general information on the project is open to the public, and registered users can access the online portal and tool documents.
Welcome to Quality
Improving the quality of medical care is a major objective of an accountable, public health care system. Family medicine is the cornerstone of the health care system and family practices play a key role in providing safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, responsive and comprehensive primary health care. Family practices are also undergoing a transformation into group practices and interdisciplinary teams in Ontario. The development and testing of a voluntary quality assessment programme was proposed and funded as a first step in a process that would faciltiate continuous quality improvement (CQI) of family practices in Ontario.
The Quality in Family Practice project, Quality, was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health & Long Term Care through the Primary Health Care Transition Fund.
The project is an evidence-based undertaking designed to recommend an interdisciplinary assessment program for family practice in Ontario. Based on extensive research, environmental scan, and information gathered from visiting sites in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, a set of Quality assessment indicators / tools were developed. They have been piloted (Phase 2), and field tested (Phase 3) with a number of Family Health Teams (FHT’s) in Ontario. Further to completion of the above in 2008, a Delphi Study was initiated to validate and fine-tune the indicators / tools developed to-date. The next version of the tool will be ready in Aug 2009.
Please see "About Quality" for more information.
Phase One recommended a programme in Ontario which promotes and celebrates a culture of CQI in family practices. The project was collaborative with a multidisciplinary group of key stakeholders and consumers. In this phase, the Quality Assessment Tool was developed and a group of interdisciplinary providers and consumers were trained as Quality Master Assessors.
Phase Two set up a demonstration pilot project in three family practices in Ontario, to test the feasibility, acceptability and affordability of the Quality programme.
Phase Three has been completed in 2008, with field testing of the voluntary assessment program in seven Family Health Teams.
