Research Posters
A rating instrument to assess ambulatory women’s health procedural skills
Rezaiefar P, Archibald D, Waqas N, Humphrey-Murto S.
Background:
Ambulatory Women’s Health Procedures (AWHPs) are essential primary care services few family physicians provide. CCFP licensing exam does not examine the candidates’ procedural skills competence. Family Medicine teaching lacks validated tools to provide feedback to learners or to measure the learner’s progression towards competence of procedural skills. The two most commonly used rating instruments of technical skills are Procedure Specific Checklist (PSC) focused on content knowledge & Global Rating Scale (GRS) focused on psychomotor skills.
Objective:
To develop checklists and rating scales for four AWHPs and provide validity evidence for their use in Family Medicine as tools for formative and summative purposes.
Acceptability and feasibility of a pediatric care provider led social determinants of health screening tool
Eyre A, Cohen J, Funnell S, James L, Gulgani S, Abi Haidar H, Samson L, Ward, M, Jetty R, Harrison M, Lyons J, Frasier-Roberts L, Bennett S, Archibald D, Khorsand S, Audcent T.
Background:
Social Determinants of Health (SDH) have been closely linked to health outcomes, well-being in later life, patients’ abilities to comply with recommended treatments and resource utilization. The pediatric population poses a unique challenge. However, complex SDHs may not be easily recognized by healthcare providers and can be difficult to describe. Multiple tools to screen for SDH have been suggested and/or developed but they tend to be detailed and too long for use in busy clinical settings.
Objective:
To better understand the acceptability and feasibility to the use of an integrated brief pediatric screening tool by health care providers in primary care settings and hospital clinics.
Addressing skepticism of medical humanities in family medicine education
Ng A, LaDonna K, Scowcroft K
Background:
Family medicine is a postmodern specialty. Postmodern theory is closer to the values and experience of family medicine than the ‘modern’ values of a ‘scientific’ rationalism. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is an educational intervention which uses visual art to teach critical thinking, communication, and visual literacy. VTS grew from a methodology for gallery teaching in museums to extensive applications in a variety of environments including medical education.
Objective:
What meaning does Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) have for medical trainees within the context of learning in family medicine?
Breaststroke swimming after breast cancer treatment/surgery as a means of treatment for seroma, lymphedema and chronic arm and chest pain
Mills N, Srikanthan Am, Abi Haidar H, Archibald D, Kendall N
Background:
Lymphedema and seroma, in 1/3rd of breast cancer survivors, is a main source of suffering and morbidity due to its chronic, progressive, and incurable nature. 30-60 % of women with breast cancer will experience some form of arm morbidity 6 months to 3 years after breast cancer. Currently, treatment for seroma and lymphedema is drainage, massage and use of compression dressings, but it can be ineffective, costly and short lasting.
Objective:
To investigate whether adding breaststroke swimming in post breast-cancer patients on top of the current standard of care (1) can significantly reduce pain and increase shoulder range of motion (ROM) in the affected side arm and, (2) reduce arm and chest wall pain on the affected side.
CPIN-LEAP: The Canadian Practice Information Network – Learners and patient partnership: Empowering learners and patients to shape the future of primary care through feedback
Archibald D, Johnston S, Hogg W, Bilodeau A, Wooltorton E, Fowler N, Pitre L, Pomerleau M.
Background:
Patient reported experience measures (PREMs) are increasingly used to evaluate aspects of healthcare system performance. Identifying and evaluating patient and primary care provider (PCP) co-determined measures of assessing communication skills through patient feedback may help learners improve their communication skills. Automated survey systems may be used to anonymize and aggregate PREMS.
Objective:
CPIN is a primary care practice tool that addresses the pressing need for infrastructure and mechanisms to engage patients across small independent primary care practices. The purpose of the study is to identify patient and physician co-determined priority PREMs to use for an automated primary care practice patient survey system to provide patient feedback to learners about their communication skills.
Electronic patient portals: Impact on traditional health care usage and provider clerical workload
Ferguson K, Fraser M, Tuna M, Bruntz C, Dahrouge S
Background:
Electronic portals allow patients to view test results, renew prescriptions, book appointments and message providers. Portals are expected to contribute to more authentic collaboration between clinicians and patients, but their impact on patient usage of traditional health care services and provider clerical workload is unclear.
Objective:
(1) Assess the impact of electronic patient portal on traditional face-to-face patient encounters in primary care and (2) estimate the impact of an electronic patient portal on the clerical workload of primary care providers.
Escape the Office: The use of escape rooms as an alternative teaching strategy for QI (quality improvement) principles in medical education
Amrani S, Chikpov P, Puncher J, Jolin-Dahel K
Background:
Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It is a set of activities and processes to problem solving by using/applying the characteristics of game elements. Escape rooms are a growing phenomenon that can be leveraged for educational needs. In addition to reinforcing QI principles using problem solving skills, the escape room allows learners to develop teamwork, leadership and communication abilities.
Objective:
To design a virtual escape room to strengthen and review the basic quality improvement principles for family medicine learners.
Improving healthcare and resource stewardship in the Emergency Department through physician education, audit and feedback
Gandhi R, Lessard R, Landry S Abdulnour J
Background:
The responsible and sustainable use of medical resources has become a priority for hospitals across Canada. Choosing Wisely Canada provides physicians with awareness campaigns to reduce unnecessary testing by highlighting latest guidelines, evidence and expert consensus. To date, however, efforts to change ordering behaviour in clinical practice has seen limited success.
Objective:
This study evaluates the effectiveness of changing physician ordering behaviour of two common tests in a Canadian Emergency Department (ED) by using education, audit and feedback, and personalized performance scorecards.
Investigating Patient Satisfaction of Integrated Virtual Care (IVC)
Buchanan S, Bjerre L, Peixoto C, Archibald D, Fitzsimon J
Background:
A healthcare crisis exists in Renfrew County as an estimated 25000 people do not have access to a family physician. The Integrated Virtual Care (IVC) project was designed to reverse this crisis by providing accessible, comprehensive primary care to patients currently unattached to any primary care provider. IVC assigns patients to a new family physician, whom the patient interacts with predominantly virtually. Allied health professionals provide additional in-person and at-home care locally. The family physician is, at all times, fully responsible for their patients’ comprehensive primary care.
Objective:
(1) To evaluate overall patient experience and satisfaction when accessing comprehensive primary care through the IVC program, and (2) to investigate if a difference in satisfaction exists between patients who previously formed relationships with their family physician before IVC, and patients who met their family physician for the first time virtually.
Primary care for urban marginalized and complex populations: A program evaluation
Khorsand S, Lacombe C, McLellan A, Abi Haidar H, Geller C, Eyre A
Background:
The study’s research question was: how does a tailored and comprehensive primary care model, designed for urban marginalized and complex populations, effect individual healthcare literacy three to five years’ post initial contact?
Objective:
Phase 1 – To validate if the Urban Outreach (UO) program at Centretown Community Health Centre (CCHC) is achieving the stated mandate of providing the best possible health care to the most marginalized and complex individuals and families; Phase 2 – To study the healthcare literacy of this population.
The impact of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) wait-times prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with mental health disorders: A scoping review
Farhin S, Peixoto C, Bjerre L
Background:
Approximately 1 in 5 Canadians experience mental illness, most commonly mood disorders. Several patient populations are not suitable for or are not responsive to pharmacotherapy (21% of patients with major depressive disorder suffer from severe treatment-resistant depression; Ten percent of patients experiencing psychiatric illnesses are diagnosed with catatonia). Both severe treatment-resistant depression and catatonia can be effectively treated with ECT. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ECT treatments were suddenly halted without notice. Currently, the clinical and economic impacts of delaying ECT, both pre- and intra-pandemic, are unknown.
Objectives:
The objectives are to assess the clinical and economic impacts of delaying, ECT treatment using Ontario’s rich population health databases (’ICES data’) and conduct a scoping review to search existing literature to answer the following: (1) sub-study 1: pre-pandemic access to ECT and (2) sub-study 2: interruption of outpatient ECT due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Wellness Checks Program
Haykal KA
Background:
At the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, the Student Affairs Office (SAO) has a mandate to ensure the wellbeing of students. The Wellness Check Program was created and is run by the SAO to help students assess their personal wellbeing. The evaluation includes completion of a questionnaire followed by a 30-minute individual meeting with a counsellor.
Objectives:
Using the data from the wellness check questionnaires, the main objective was to determine: (1) the risk factors for mental health in medical students and (2) the variation of mental health and its risk factors depending on demographic variables as well as the difference in mental health between year 1 and year 3 students.