Successful Integration and Capacity Enhancement for Chronic Pain Clinical Evidence into a Primary Care EMR
Brief Description
This pilot project focused on the topic of Chronic Non-Cancer Pain and the appropriate role of Opioids (narcotics) to treat Chronic Pain. Chronic Pain is a common and complex condition stemming from a variety of causes (low back pain, arthritis, etc.). A key objective of the project was to understand better the challenges and barriers to effectively integrating evidence-based recommendations into EMRs. The project approach included working with a primary care team to review clinical evidence and tools, determine current EMR capacity, identify important needs of the practice and developing/modifying the EMR to increase primary care capacity in providing high quality care for patients with CNCP.
Partners
Centre for Effective Practice
Core Care Practice of the Hamilton Family Health Team
Bell (EMR Vendor)
Client/Funder
eHealth Ontario
Detailed Description
Achievements:
This project achieved numerous milestones over the 6 month pilot timeline including the following:
- Ability to identify and track Chronic Pain patients at a practice level through a Chronic Pain registry
- Ability to monitor important clinical and process indicators on a patient and practice level.
- Greater potential for patient engagement by tracking patient-driven pain goals
- Integration and automation of numerous forms into the EMR (e.g. Opioid Manager, narcotics contract, insurance forms) to improve consistency of care and efficiencies
Recommendations:
While the project was successful in many ways, all participants felt that this project was just a first step on the right direction to harnessing the potential value of EMRs across the province to promote evidence-based care. Several key recommendations were made, such as:
- Develop and implement Chronic Pain modules with other leading EMR vendors to make these kinds of EMR enhancements available to more EMR users across Ontario
- Review and apply this approach to address other key clinical areas in the Ontario Health System and primary care (e.g. chronic diseases, cancer research, etc.)
- Explore a model to support guideline implementation for all EMR users in Ontario in order to integrate emerging, changing evidence and new guidelines
- Ensure that future EMR specifications in Ontario can enable and be responsive to integrating evidence from clinical practice guidelines
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