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Background: Action on the social determinants of health is important to strengthen primary health care and promote access among underserved populations. We report on findings from stakeholder consultations undertaken at one of the Canadian sites of the Innovative Models Promoting Access-to-Care Transformation (IMPACT) program, as part of the development of a best practice intervention to improve access to primary health care. The overarching objective of this qualitative study was to understand the processes, barriers, and facilitators to connect patients to health enabling community resources (HERs) to inform a patient navigation model situated in primary care. Methods: Focus groups and interviews were conducted with primary care physicians, and community health and social service providers to understand their experiences in supporting patients in reaching HERs. Current gaps in access to primary health care and the potential of patient navigation were also explored. We applied Levesque et al., (2013) access framework to code the data and four themes emerged: (1) Approachability and Ability to Perceive, (2) Acceptability and Ability to Seek, (3) Availability and Accommodation, and Ability to Reach, and (4) Appropriateness. Results: Determinants of access included patient and provider awareness of HERs, the nature of the patient-provider relationship, funding of HERs, integration of primary and community care services, and continuity of information. Participants' perspectives about the potential scope and role of a patient navigator provided valuable insight for the development of the Access to Resources in the Community (ARC) navigation model and how it could be embedded in a primary care setting. Conclusion: Additional consultation with key stakeholders in the health region is needed to gain a broader understanding of the challenges in caring for primary care patients with social barriers and how to support them in accessing community-based primary health care to inform the design of the ARC intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inequitable access to primary health care (PHC) remains a problem for most western countries. Failure to scale up effective interventions has been due, in part, to a failure to share the logic and essential elements of successful programs. The aim of this paper is to describe what we learned about improving access to PHC for vulnerable groups across multiple sites through use of a common theory-based program logic model and a common evaluation approach. This was the IMPACT initiative. Methods: IMPACT's evaluation used a mixed methods design with longitudinal (pre and post) analysis of six interventions. The analysis for this paper included four of the six sites that met study criteria. These sites were located in Canada (Alberta, Quebec and Ontario) and Australia (New South Wales). Using the overarching logic model, unexpected findings were reviewed, and alternative explanations were considered to understand how the mechanisms of each intervention may have contributed to results. Results: Each site addressed their local access problem with different strategies and from different starting points. All sites observed changes in patient abilities to access PHC and provider access capabilities. The combination of intended and observed consequences for consumers and providers was different at each site, but all sites achieved change in both consumer ability and provider capability, even in interventions where there was no activity targeting provider behaviors. Discussion: The model helped to identify, explore and synthesize intended and unintended consequences of four interventions that appeared to have more differences than similarities. Similar outcomes for different interventions and multiple impacts of each intervention on abilities were observed, implying complex causal pathways. Conclusions: All the interventions were a low-cost incremental attempt to address unmet health care needs of vulnerable populations. Change is possible; sustaining change may be more challenging. Access to PHC requires attention to both patient abilities and provider characteristics. The logic model proved to be a valuable heuristic tool for defining the objectives of the interventions, evaluating their impacts, and learning from the comparison of 'cases'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite the apparent benefits to teaching, many faculty members are reluctant to participate in medical education research (MER) for a variety of reasons. In addition to the further demand on their time, physicians often lack the confidence to initiate MER projects and require more support in the form of funding, structure and guidance. These obstacles have contributed to a decline in physician participation in MER as well as to a perceived decay in its quality. As a countermeasure to encourage physicians to undertake research, the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa implemented a programme in which physicians receive the funding, coaching and support staff necessary to complete a 2-year research project. The programme is intended primarily for first-time researchers and is meant to serve as a gateway to a research career funded by external grants. Since its inception in 2010, the Program for Innovation in Medical Education (PIME) has supported 16 new clinician investigators across 14 projects.Methods: We performed a programme evaluation 3 years after the programme launched to assess its utility to participants. This evaluation employed semi-structured interviews with physicians who performed a research project within the programme.Results: Programme participants stated that their confidence in conducting research had improved and that they felt well supported throughout their project. They appreciated the collaborative nature of the programme and remarked that it had improved their willingness to solicit the expertise of others. Finally, the programme allowed participants to develop in the scholarly role expected by family physicians in Canada.Conclusion: The PIME may serve as a helpful model for institutions seeking to engage faculty physicians in Medical Education Research and to thereby enhance the teaching received by their medical learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Practice facilitation has been associated with meaningful improvements in disease prevention and quality of patient care. Using practice facilitation, the Improved Delivery of Cardiovascular Care (IDOCC) project aimed to improve the delivery of evidence-based cardiovascular care in primary care practices across a large health region. Our goal was to evaluate IDOCC's impact on adherence to processes of care delivery.Methods: A pragmatic stepped wedge cluster randomized trial recruiting primary care providers in practices located in Eastern Ontario, Canada (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00574808). Participants were randomly assigned by region to one of three steps. Practice facilitators were intended to visit practices every 3-4 (year 1-intensive) or 6-12 weeks (year 2-sustainability) to support changes in practice behavior. The primary outcome was mean adherence to indicators of evidence-based care measured at the patient level. Adherence was assessed by chart review of a randomly selected cohort of 66 patients per practice in each pre-intervention year, as well as in year 1 and year 2 post-intervention.Results: Eighty-four practices (182 physicians) participated. On average, facilitators had 6.6 (min: 2, max: 11) face-to-face visits with practices in year 1 and 2.5 (min: 0 max: 10) visits in year 2. We collected chart data from 5292 patients. After adjustment for patient and provider characteristics, there was a 1.9 % (95 % confidence interval (CI): -2.9 to -0.9 %) and 4.2 % (95 % CI: -5.7 to -2.6 %) absolute decrease in mean adherence from baseline to intensive and sustainability years, respectively.Conclusions: IDOCC did not improve adherence to best-practice guidelines. Our results showed a small statistically significant decrease in mean adherence of questionable clinical significance. Potential reasons for this result include implementation challenges, competing priorities in practices, a broad focus on multiple chronic disease indicators, and use of an overall index of adherence. These results contrast with findings from previously reported facilitation trials and highlight the complexities and challenges of translating research findings into clinical practice.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00574808. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]